In 1226, the crown was passed to rival Hethumids through Leo's daughter Isabella's second husband, Hethum I. As the Mongols conquered vast regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, Hethum and succeeding Hethumid rulers sought to create an Armeno-Mongol alliance against common Muslim foes, most notably the Mamluks.[5] In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Crusader states disintegrated and the Mongols became Islamized, leaving the Armenian Kingdom without any regional allies. After relentless attacks by the Mamluks in Egypt in the fourteenth century, the Cilician Armenia of the Lusignan dynasty, mired in an internal religious conflict, finally fell in 1375.[6]

Commercial and military interactions with Europeans brought new Western influences to the Cilician Armenian society. Many aspects of Western European life were adopted by the nobility including chivalry, fashions in clothing, and the use of French titles, names, and language. Moreover, the organization of the Cilician society shifted from its traditional system to become closer to Western feudalism.[7] The European Crusaders themselves borrowed know-how, such as elements of Armenian castle-building and church architecture.[8] Cilician Armenia thrived economically, with the port of Ayas serving as a center for East to West trade.[7]

Armenian presence in Cilicia dates back to the first century BC, when under Tigranes the Great, the Kingdom of Armenia expanded and conquered a vast region in the Levant. In 83 BC, the Greek aristocracy of Seleucid Syria, weakened by a bloody civil war, offered their allegiance to the ambitious Armenian king.[9] Tigranes then conquered Phoenicia and Cilicia, effectively ending the Seleucid Empire. The southern border of his domain reached as far as Ptolemais (modern Acre). Many of the inhabitants of conquered cities were sent to the new metropolis of Tigranakert (Latin: Tigranocerta). At its height, Tigranes' Armenian Empire extended from the Pontic Alps to Mesopotamia, and from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Tigranes invaded as far southeast as the Parthian capital of Ecbatana, located in modern-day western Iran. In 27 BC, the Roman Empire conquered Cilicia and transformed it into one of its eastern provinces.[10]

After the 395 AD partition of the Roman Empire into halves, Cilicia became incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. In the sixth century AD, Armenian families relocated to Byzantine territories. Many served in the Byzantine army as soldiers or as generals, and rose to prominent imperial positions.[11]

Cilicia fell to Arab invasions in the seventh century and was entirely incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate.[10] However, the Caliphate failed to gain a permanent foothold in Anatolia, as Cilicia was reconquered in the year 965 by Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas. The Caliphate's occupation of Cilicia and of other areas in Asia Minor led many Armenians to seek refuge and protection further west in the Byzantine Empire, which created demographic imbalances in the region.[10] In order to better protect their eastern territories after their reconquest, the Byzantines resorted largely to a policy of mass transfer and relocation of native populations within the Empire's borders.[10] Nicephorus thus expelled the Muslims living in Cilicia, and encouraged Christians from Syria and Armenia to settle in the region. Emperor Basil II (976–1025) tried to expand into Armenian Vaspurakan in the east and Arab-held Syria towards the south. As a result of the Byzantine military campaigns, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia, and eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia.[12]

The formal annexation of Greater Armenia to the Byzantine Empire in 1045 and its conquest by the Seljuk Turks 19 years later caused two new waves of Armenian migration to Cilicia.[12] The Armenians could not re-establish an independent state in their native highland after the fall of Bagratid Armenia as it remained under foreign occupation. Following its conquest in 1045, and in the midst of Byzantine efforts to further repopulate the Empire's east, the Armenian immigration into Cilicia intensified and turned into a major socio-political movement.[10] The Armenians came to serve the Byzantines as military officers or governors, and were given control of important cities on the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontier. The Seljuks also played a significant role in the Armenian population movement into Cilicia.[10] In 1064, the Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan made their advance towards Anatolia by capturing Ani in Byzantine-held Armenia. Seven years later, they earned a decisive victory against Byzantium by defeating Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes' army at Manzikert, north of Lake Van. Alp Arslan's successor, Malik-Shah I, further expanded the Seljuk Empire and levied repressive taxes on the Armenian inhabitants. After Catholicos Gregory II the Martyrophile's assistant and representative, Parsegh of Cilicia's solicitation, the Armenians obtained a partial reprieve, but Malik's succeeding governors continued levying taxes.[10] This led the Armenians to seek refuge in Byzantium and in Cilicia. Some Armenian leaders set themselves up as sovereign lords, while others remained, at least in name, loyal to the Empire. The most successful of these early Armenian warlords was Philaretos Brachamios, a former Byzantine general who was alongside Romanus Diogenes at Manzikert. Between 1078 and 1085, Philaretus built a principality stretching from Malatia in the north to Antioch in the south, and from Cilicia in the west to Edessa in the east. He invited many Armenian nobles to settle in his territory, and gave them land and castles.[13] But Philaretus's state began to crumble even before his death in 1090, and ultimately disintegrated into local lordships.[14]

One of the princes who came after Philaretos' invitation was Ruben, who had close ties with the last Bagratid Armenian king, Gagik II. Ruben was alongside the Armenian ruler Gagik when he went to Constantinople upon the Byzantine emperor's request. Instead of negotiating peace, however, the king was forced to cede his Armenian lands and live in exile. Gagik was later assassinated by Greeks.[15] In 1080, soon after this assassination, Ruben organized a band of Armenian troops and revolted against the Byzantine Empire.[16] He was joined by many other Armenian lords and nobles. Thus, in 1080, the foundations of the independent Armenian princedom of Cilicia, and the future kingdom, were laid under Ruben's leadership.[3] His descendants were called Rubenids.[11] After Ruben's death in 1095, the Rubenid principality, centered around their fortresses, was led by Ruben's son, Constantine I of Armenia; however, there were several other Armenian principalities both inside and beyond Cilicia, such as that of the Het'umids. This important Armenian dynasty was founded by the former Byzantine general Oshin, and was centered southwest of the Cilician Gates.[14] The Het'umids have always contended with the Rubenids for power and influence over Cilicia. Various Armenian lords and former generals of Philaretos were also present in Marash, Malatia (Melitene), and Edessa, the latter two being located outside Cilicia.[14]

During the reign of Constantine I, the First Crusade took place. An army of Western European Christians marched through Anatolia and Cilicia on their way to Jerusalem. The Armenians in Cilicia gained powerful allies among the Frankish Crusaders, whose leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, was considered a savior for the Armenians. Constantine saw the Crusaders' arrival as a one-time opportunity to consolidate his rule of Cilicia by eliminating the remaining Byzantine strongholds in the region.[16] With the Crusaders' help, they secured Cilicia from the Byzantines and Turks, both by direct military actions in Cilicia and by establishing Crusader states in Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli.[17] The Armenians also helped the Crusaders; as described by Pope Gregory XIII in his Ecclesia Romana:

Among the good deeds which the Armenian people has done towards the church and the Christian world, it should especially be stressed that, in those times when the Christian princes and the warriors went to retake the Holy Land, no people or nation, with the same enthusiasm, joy and faith came to their aid as the Armenians did, who supplied the Crusaders with horses, provision and guidance. The Armenians assisted these warriors with their utter courage and loyalty during the Holy wars.

To show their appreciation to their Armenian allies, the Crusaders honored Constantine with the titles of Comes and Baron. The friendly relationship between the Armenians and Crusaders was cemented with intermarriages frequently occurring between them. For instance, Joscelin I, Count of Edessa married the daughter of Constantine, and Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, married Constantine's niece, daughter of his brother T'oros.[16] The Armenians and Crusaders were part allies, part rivals for the two centuries to come. Often at the invitation of Armenian barons and kings the Crusaders maintained for varying periods castles in and along the borders of the Kingdom, including Bagras, Trapessac, T‛il Hamtun, Harunia, Selefkia, Amouda, and Sarvandikar.[3]

The son of Constantine was T'oros I, who succeeded him in around 1100. During his rule, he faced both Byzantines and Seljuks, and expanded the Rubenid domain. He transferred the Cilician capital from Tarsus to Sis after having eliminated the small Byzantine garrison stationed there.[18] In 1112, he took the castle of Cyzistra in order to avenge the death of the last Bagratid Armenian king, Gagik II. The assassins of the latter, three Byzantine brothers who governed the castle, were thus brutally killed.[16][17] Eventually, there emerged a type of centralized government in the area with the rise of the Rubenid princes. During the twelfth century, they were the closest thing to a ruling dynasty, and wrestled with the Byzantines for power over the region.

Prince Levon I, T'oros' brother and successor, started his reign in 1129. He integrated the Cilician coastal cities to the Armenian principality, thus consolidating Armenian commercial leadership in the region. During this period, there was continued hostility between Cilician Armenia and the Seljuk Turks, as well as occasional bickering between Armenians and the Principality of Antioch over forts located near southern Amanus.[16] In this context, in 1137, the Byzantines under Emperor John II, who still considered Cilicia to be a Byzantine province, conquered most of the towns and cities located on the Cilician plains.[16][17] They captured and imprisoned Levon in Constantinople with several other family members, including his sons Ruben and T'oros. Levon died in prison three years later.[17] Ruben was blinded and killed while in prison, but Levon's second son and successor, T'oros II, escaped in 1141 and returned to Cilicia to lead the struggle with the Byzantines.[16] Initially, he was successful in repelling Byzantine invasions; but, in 1158, he paid homage to Emperor Manuel I through a short-lived treaty.[19] Around 1151, during T'oros' rule, the head of the Armenian Church transferred his see to Hromkla.[12]Ruben II, Mleh, and Ruben III, succeeded T'oros in 1169, 1170, and 1175, respectively.

Prince Levon II, one of Levon I's grandsons and brother of Ruben III, acceded the throne in 1187. He fought the rulers of Konya, Aleppo, and Damascus, and added new lands to Cilicia, doubling its Mediterranean coast.[20] At the time, Saladin of Egypt defeated the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which led to the Third Crusade. Prince Levon II profited from the situation by improving relations with the Europeans. Cilician Armenia's prominence in the region is attested by letters sent in 1189 by Pope Clement III to Levon and to Catholicos Gregory IV, in which he asks Armenian military and financial assistance to the crusaders.[5] Thanks to the support given to Levon by the Holy Roman Emperors (Frederick Barbarossa, and his son, Henry VI), he elevated the princedom's status to a kingdom. On January 6, 1199, the day Armenians celebrate Christmas, Prince Levon II was crowned with great solemnity in the cathedral of Tarsus, in the presence of the Syrian Jacobite patriarch, the Greek metropolitan of Tarsus, and numerous church dignitaries and military leaders. While he was crowned by the catholicos, Gregory VI Abirad, Levon received a banner with the insignia of a lion from Archbishop Conrad of Mainz in the name of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.[5][21] By securing his crown, he became the first King of Armenian Cilicia as King Levon I.[20] He became known as Levon the Magnificent, due to his numerous contributions to Cilician Armenian statehood in the political, military, and economic spheres.[3] Levon's growing power made him a particularly important ally for the neighbouring crusader state of Antioch, which resulted in intermarriage with noble families there, but his dynastic policies revealed ambition towards the overlordship of Antioch which the Latins ultimately could not countenance. They resulted in the Antiochene Wars of Succession between Levon's grand-nephew Raymond Roupen and Bohemond IV of Antioch-Tripoli.[22] The Rubenids consolidated their power by controlling strategic roads with fortifications that extended from the Taurus Mountains into the plain and along the borders, including the baronial and royal castles at Sis, Anavarza, Vahka, Vaner/Kovara, Sarvandikar, Kuklak, T‛il Hamtun, Hadjin, and Gaban (modern Geben).[3]

In 1219, after a failed attempt by Raymond-Roupen to claim the throne, Levon's daughter Zabel was proclaimed the new ruler of Cilician Armenia and placed under the regency of Adam of Baghras. Baghras was assassinated and the regency passed to Constantine of Baberon from the Het'umid dynasty, a very influential Armenian family.[6] In order to fend off the Seljuk threat, Constantine sought an alliance with Bohemond IV of Antioch, and the marriage of Bohemond's son Philip to Queen Zabel sealed this; however, Philip was too "Latin" for the Armenians' taste, as he refused to abide by the precepts of the Armenian Church.[6] In 1224, Philip was imprisoned in Sis for stealing the crown jewels of Armenia, and after several months of confinement, he was poisoned and killed. Zabel decided to embrace a monastic life in the city of Seleucia, but she was later forced to marry Constantine's son Het'um in 1226.[6] Het'um became co-ruler as King Het'um I.

The apparent unification in marriage of the two main dynasties of Cilicia, Rubenid and Het'umid, ended a century of dynastic and territorial rivalry, while bringing the Het'umids to the forefront of political dominance in Cilician Armenia.[6] Although the accession of Het'um I in 1226 marked the beginning of Cilician Armenia's united dynastic kingdom, the Armenians were confronted by many challenges from abroad. In order to enact revenge for his son's death, Bohemond sought an alliance with Seljuk sultan Kayqubad I, who captured regions west of Seleucia. Het'um also struck coins with his figure on one side, and with the name of the sultan on the other.[6]

Fortress of Korikos in Cilician Armenia built ca. the thirteenth century.

During the rule of Zabel and Het'um, the Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successor Ögedei Khan rapidly expanded from Central Asia and reached the Middle East, conquering Mesopotamia and Syria in their advance towards Egypt.[6] On June 26, 1243, they secured a decisive victory at Köse Dağ against the Seljuk Turks.[23] The Mongol conquest was disastrous for Greater Armenia, but not Cilicia, as Het'um preemptively chose to cooperate with the Mongols. He sent his brother Smbat to the Mongol court of Karakorum in 1247 to negotiate an alliance.[a][b][c] He returned in 1250 with an agreement guaranteeing the integrity of Cilicia, as well as the promise of Mongol aid to recapture forts seized by the Seljuks. In 1253, Het'um himself visited the new Mongol ruler Möngke Khan at Karakorum. He was received with great honors and promised freedom from taxation of the Armenian churches and monasteries located in Mongol territory.[5] Both during his trip to the Mongol court and in his 1256 return to Cilicia, he passed through Greater Armenia. On his return voyage, he remained much longer, receiving visits from local princes, bishops, and abbots.[5] Het'um and his forces fought under the Mongol banner of Hulagu in the conquest of Muslim Syria and the capture of Aleppo and Damascus from 1259 to 1260.[24] According to Arab historians, during Hulagu's conquest of Aleppo, Het'um and his forces were responsible for a massacre and arsons in the main mosque and in the neighboring quarters and souks.[23]

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Mamluks had been replacing their former Ayyubid masters in Egypt. The Mamluks began as a cavalry corps established from Turkic and other slaves sold to the Egyptian sultan by Genghis Khan.[25] They took control of Egypt and Palestine in 1250 and 1253, respectively, and filled the vacuum caused by the Mongol destruction of the pre-existing Ayyubid and Abbasid governments.[23] Cilician Armenia also expanded and recovered lands crossed by important trade routes on the Cappadocian, Mesopotamian, and Syrian borders, including Marash and Behesni, which further made the Armenian Kingdom a potential Mamluk target.[23] Armenia also engaged in an economic battle with the Mamluks for control of the spice trade.[26] The Mamluk leader Baibars took the field in 1266 with the intention of wiping out the Crusader states from the Middle East.[25] In the same year, he summoned Het'um I to change his allegiance from the Mongols to the Mamluks, and remit to the Mamluks the territories and fortresses the Armenian king had acquired through his submission to the Mongols. After these threats, Het'um went to the Mongol court of the Il-Khan in Persia to obtain military support, but in his absence, the Mamluks invaded Cilician Armenia. Het'um's sons T'oros and Levon were left to defend the country. During the Disaster of Mari, the Mamluks under Sultan Al-Mansur Ali and the commander Qalawun defeated the Armenians, killing T'oros and capturing Levon along with tens of thousands of Armenian soldiers. Het'um ransomed Levon for a high price, giving the Mamluks control of many fortresses and a large sum of money. The 1268 Cilicia earthquake further devastated the country.

In 1269, Het'um I abdicated in favour of his son Levon II, who paid large annual tributes to the Mamluks. Even with the tributes, the Mamluks continued to attack Cilicia every few years. In 1275, an army led by the emirs of the sultan invaded the country without pretext and faced Armenians who had no means of resistance. The city of Tarsus was taken, the royal palace and the church of Saint Sophia was burned, the state treasury was looted, 15,000 civilians were killed, and 10,000 were taken captive to Egypt. Almost the entire population of Ayas, Armenian, and Frankish perished.[25]

Little Armenia, a Christian exclave in Anatolia, and its surrounding states in 1300.

In 1281, following the defeat of the Mongols and the Armenians under Möngke Temur by the Mamluks at the Second Battle of Homs, a truce was forced on Armenia. Further, in 1285, following a powerful offensive push by Qalawun, the Armenians had to sign a ten-year truce under harsh terms. The Armenians were obligated to cede many fortresses to the Mamluks and were prohibited to rebuild their defensive fortifications. Cilician Armenia was forced to trade with Egypt, thereby circumventing a trade embargo imposed by the pope. Moreover, the Mamluks were to receive an annual tribute of one million dirhams from the Armenians.[27] The Mamluks, despite the above, continued to raid Cilician Armenia on numerous occasions. In 1292, it was invaded by Al-Ashraf Khalil, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, who had conquered the remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in Acre the year before. Hromkla was also sacked, forcing the Catholicossate to move to Sis. Het'um was forced to abandon Behesni, Marash, and Tel Hamdoun to the Turks. In 1293, he abdicated in favor of his brother T'oros III, and entered the monastery of Mamistra.

Ghazan ordering the King Of Armenia Het'um II to accompany Kutlushka on the 1303 attack on Damascus.[28]

In the summer of 1299, Het'um I's grandson, King Het'um II, again facing threats of attack by the Mamluks, asked the Mongol khan of Persia, Ghâzân, for his support. In response, Ghâzân marched towards Syria and invited the Franks of Cyprus (the King of Cyprus, the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic Knights), to join his attack on the Mamluks. The Mongols took the city of Aleppo, where they were joined by King Het'um. His forces included Templars and Hospitallers from the kingdom of Armenia, who participated in the rest of the offensive.[29] The combined force defeated the Mamluks in the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar, on December 23, 1299.[29] The bulk of the Mongol army was then obligated to retreat. In their absence, the Mamluks regrouped, and regained the area in May 1300.

In 1303, the Mongols tried to conquer Syria once again in larger numbers (approximately 80,000) along with the Armenians, but they were defeated at Homs on March 30, 1303, and during the decisive Battle of Shaqhab, south of Damascus, on April 21, 1303.[30] It is considered to be the last major Mongol invasion of Syria.[31] When Ghazan died on May 10, 1304, all hope of reconquest of the Holy Land died in conjunction.

Het'um II abdicated in favour of his sixteen-year-old nephew Levon III and became a Franciscan monk; however, he emerged from his monastic cell to help Levon defend Cilicia from a Mamluk army, which was thus defeated near Baghras.[32] In 1307, both the current and former kings met with Bularghu, the Mongol representative in Cilicia, at his camp just outside Anazarba. Bularghu, a recent convert to Islam, murdered the entire Armenian party.[33]Oshin, brother of Het'um, immediately marched against Bularghu to retaliate and vanquished him, forcing him to leave Cilicia. Bulargu was executed by Oljeitu for his crime at the request of the Armenians.[34] Oshin was crowned new king of Cilician Armenia upon his return to Tarsus.[32]

The Het'umids continued ruling an unstable Cilicia until the assassination of Levon IV in 1341, at the hands of an angry mob. Levon IV formed an alliance with the Kingdom of Cyprus, then ruled by the Frankish Lusignan dynasty, but could not resist attacks from the Mamluks.[35]

There had always been close relations between the Armenians and the Lusignans, who, by the 12th century, were already established in the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Had it not been for their presence in Cyprus, the kingdom of Cilician Armenia may have, out of necessity, established itself on the island.[36] In 1342, Levon's cousin Guy de Lusignan, was anointed king as Constantine II, King of Armenia. Guy de Lusignan and his younger brother John were considered pro-Latin and deeply committed to the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church in the Levant. As kings, the Lusignans attempted to impose Catholicism and the European ways. The Armenian nobles largely accepted this, but the peasantry opposed the changes, which eventually led to civil strife.[37]

From 1343 to 1344, a time when the Armenian population and its feudal rulers refused to adapt to the new Lusignan leadership and its policy of Latinizing the Armenian Church, Cilicia was again invaded by the Mamluks, who were intent on territorial expansion.[38] Frequent appeals for help and support were made by the Armenians to their co-religionists in Europe, and the kingdom was also involved in planning new crusades.[39] Amidst failed Armenian pleas for help from Europe, the falls of Sis to the Mamluks in 1374 and the fortress of Gaban in 1375, where King Levon V, his daughter Marie, and her husband Shahan had taken refuge, put an end to the kingdom.[38] The final king, Levon V, was granted safe passage, and died in exile in Paris in 1393 after calling in vain for another crusade.[37] In 1396, Levon's title and privileges were transferred to James I, his cousin and king of Cyprus. The title of King of Armenia was thus united with the titles of King of Cyprus and King of Jerusalem.[40]

After the loss of Cyprus in 1489 the Levantine branch of the Lusignans continued in Constantinople and from the 19th century in Saint-Petersburg. The last reigning Prince in Constantinople was Christodule de Lusignan who was a direct descendant of kings Janus, Jacques I and Hugo IV. After his arrival in Russia in 1827, his son Louis de Lusignan was recognised as "Royal Prince of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia” by the Russian Emperor Nicholas I. This line of descent was defended in the French civil tribunals in the 1880s by Prince Michel de Lusignan, son of Louis and grandson of Chistodule, who resided in St.Petersbourg. As head of the royal house, Prince Michel was also recognized as the Grand Master of the Royal Order of the Sword of Cyprus (L'Ordre Royal de L'Épée de Chypre). The current reigning prince of this line is Prince Constantine de Lusignan.[41]

The title has also been claimed indirectly by the House of Savoy by claiming the title King of Jerusalem and a number of other thrones.[citation needed]

Although the Mamluks had taken over Cilicia, they were unable to hold it. Turkic tribes settled there, leading to the conquest of Cilicia led by Timur. As a result, 30,000 wealthy Armenians left Cilicia and settled in Cyprus, still ruled by the Lusignan dynasty until 1489.[37] Many merchant families also fled westward and founded or joined with existing diaspora communities in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.[7] Only the humbler Armenians remained in Cilicia. They nevertheless maintained their foothold in the region throughout Turkish rule.

In the 16th century, Cilicia fell under Ottoman dominion and officially became known as the Adana Vilayet in the 17th century. Cilicia was one of the most important regions for the Ottoman Armenians, because it managed to preserve Armenian character well throughout the years.[7][42] In 1909, Cilician Armenians were massacred in Adana.[42] Descendants of the remaining Cilician Armenians have been dispersed in the Armenian diaspora, and the Holy See of Cilicia is based in Antelias, Lebanon. The lion, emblem of the Cilician Armenian state, remains a symbol of Armenian statehood to this day, featured on the Coat of arms of Armenia.

Demographically, Cilician Armenia was heterogeneous with a population of Armenians who constituted the ruling class, and also Greeks, Jews, Muslims, and various Europeans.[43] The multi-ethnic population, as well as commercial and political links with Europeans, particularly France, brought important new influences on Armenian culture.[43] The Cilician nobility adopted many aspects of Western European life, including chivalry, fashion, and the use of French Christian names. The structure of Cilician society became more synonymous with Western feudalism than to the traditional nakharar system of Armenia.[7] In fact, during the Cilician period, Western titles such as baron and constable replaced their Armenian equivalents nakharar and sparapet.[7][43] European tradition was adopted for the knighting of Armenian nobles, while jousts and tournaments similar to those in Europe had become popular in Cilician Armenia. The extent of Western influence over Cilician Armenia is also reflected by the incorporation of two new letters (Ֆ ֆ = "f" and Օ օ = "o") and various Latin-based words into the Armenian language.[43]

In other areas, there was more hostility to the new Western trends. Above all, most ordinary Armenians frowned on conversion to Roman Catholicism or Greek Orthodoxy. Cultural influence was not merely one-way, however; Cilician Armenians had an important impact on Crusaders returning to the West, most notably with their architectural traditions. Europeans incorporated elements of Armenian castle-building, learned from Armenian masons in the Crusader states, as well as some elements of church architecture.[8] Most Armenian castles made atypical usage of rocky heights, and featured curved walls and round towers, similar to those of the Hospitaller castles Krak des Chevaliers and Marqab.[44] The Cilician period also produced some important examples of Armenian art, notably the illuminated manuscripts of Toros Roslin, who was at work in Hromkla in the thirteenth century.[7]

Cilician Armenia had become a prosperous state due to its strategic position on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It was located at the juncture of many trade routes linking Central Asia and the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. The kingdom was thus important in the spice trade, as well as livestock, hides, wool, and cotton. In addition, important products such as timber, grain, wine, raisins, and raw silk were also exported from the country and finished cloth and metal products from the West were made available.[7]

During the reign of King Levon, the economy of Cilician Armenia progressed greatly and became heavily integrated with Western Europe. He secured agreements with Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, as well as the French and the Catalans, and granted them certain privileges such as tax exemptions in return for their business. The three primary harbours of the Armenian Kingdom, which were vital to its economy and defense, were the fortified coastal sites at Ayas and Koŕikos, and the river emporium of Mopsuestia. The latter, situated on two strategic caravan routes, was the last fully navigable port to the Mediterranean on the Pyramus River and the location of warehouses licensed by the Armenians to the Genoese.[3] Important European merchant communities and colonies came into existence, with their own churches, courts of law, and trading houses.[45] As French became the secondary language of Cilician nobility, the secondary language for Cilician commerce had become Italian due to the three Italian city-states' extensive involvement in the Cilician economy.[7]Marco Polo, for example, set out on his journey to China from Ayas in 1271.[45]

In the thirteenth century, under the rule of Toros, Cilician Armenia already struck its own coins. Gold and silver coins, called dram and tagvorin, were struck at the royal mints of Sis and Tarsus. Foreign coins such as the Italian ducat, florin, and zecchino, the Greek besant, the Arab dirham, and the French livre were also accepted by merchants.[7]

The Catholicosate of the Armenian Apostolic Church followed its people in taking refuge outside the Armenian highlands, which had turned into a battleground of Byzantine and Seljuk contenders. Its seat was first transferred to Sebasteia in 1058 in Cappadocia, where had existed a significant Armenian population. Later, it moved to various locations in Cilicia; Tavbloor in 1062; Dzamendav in 1066; Dzovk in 1116; and Hromkla in 1149. During King Levon I's rule, the Catholicos was located in distant Hromkla. He was assisted by fourteen bishops in administering the Armenian Church in the kingdom, a number which grew in later years. The archbishops' seats were located in Tarsus, Sis, Anazarba, Lambron, and Mamistra. There existed up to sixty monastic houses in Cilicia, although the exact locations of the majority of them remain unclear.[7]

In 1198, the Catholicos of Sis, Grigor VI Apirat, proclaimed a union between the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church; however, this had no notable effect, as the local clergy and populace was strongly opposed to such a union. The Western Church sent numerous missions to Cilician Armenia to help with rapprochement, but had limited results. The Franciscans were put in charge of this activity. John of Monte Corvino himself arrived in Cilician Armenia in 1288.[46]

Het'um II became a Franciscan monk after his abdication. The Armenian historian Nerses Balients was a Franciscan and an advocate of union with the Latin Church. The papal claim of primacy did not contribute positively to the efforts for unity between the Churches.[47] Mkhitar Skewratsi, the Armenian delegate at the council in Acre in 1261, summed the Armenian frustration in these words:

Whence does the Church of Rome derive the power to pass judgment on the other Apostolic sees while she herself is not subject to their judgments? We ourselves [the Armenians] have indeed the authority to bring you [the Catholic Church] to trial, following the example of the Apostles, and you have no right to deny our competency.[47]

After the sacking of Hromkla by the Mamluks in 1293, the Catholicosate was transferred to Sis, the capital of the Cilician Kingdom. Again, in 1441, long after the fall of the kingdom, the Armenian Catholicos of Sis, Grigor IX Musabekiants, proclaimed the union of the Armenian and Latin churches at the Council of Florence; this was countered by an Armenian schism under Kirakos I Virapetsi, who moved the See of the Catholicos to Echmiadzin, and marginalized Sis.[48]

aClaude Mutafian in Le Royaume Arménien de Cilicie, p. 55, describes "the Mongol alliance" entered into by the king of Armenia and the Franks of Antioch ("the King of Armenia decided to engage into the Mongol alliance, an intelligence that the Latin barons lacked, except for Antioch"), and "the Franco-Mongol collaboration."

b Claude Lebedel in Les Croisades describes the alliance of the Franks of Antioch and Tripoli with the Mongols: (in 1260) "the Frank barons refused an alliance with the Mongols, except for the Armenians and the Prince of Antioch and Tripoli".

c Amin Maalouf in The Crusades through Arab eyes is extensive and specific on the alliance (page numbers refer to the French edition): “The Armenians, in the person of their king Hetoum, sided with the Mongols, as well as Prince Bohemond, his son-in-law. The Franks of Acre however adopted a position of neutrality favourable to the muslims” (p. 261), “Bohemond of Antioch and Hethoum of Armenia, principal allies of the Mongols” (p. 265), “Hulagu (…) still had enough strength to prevent the punishment of his allies [Bohemond and Hethoum]” (p. 267).

^ abcRunciman, Steven (1951). A History of the Crusades, Vol. I: The First Crusade and the Foundations of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 195–201. ISBN0-521-35997-X.

^"The king of Armenia and the Prince of Antioch went to the military camp of the Tatars, and they all went off to take Damascus". Le Templier de Tyr. Quoted in Rene Grousset, Histoire des Croisade, III, p. 586.

1.
Mongol Empire
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The Mongol Empire existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Genghis Khan. The empire grew rapidly under the rule of him and his descendants, the Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Ögedeid and Chagataid factions, but disputes continued even among the descendants of Tolui. Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued as Kublai sought unsuccessfully to control of the Chagatayid and Ögedeid families. The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 marked the point of the Mongol conquests and was the first time a Mongol advance had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield. In 1304, the three western khanates briefly accepted the suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty, but it was later taken by the Han Chinese Ming dynasty in 1368. What is referred to in English as the Mongol Empire was called the Ikh Mongol Uls, in the 1240s, one of Genghiss descendants, Güyük Khan, wrote a letter to Pope Innocent IV which used the preamble Dalai Khagan of the great Mongolian state. After the succession war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke, Ariq limited Kublais power to the part of the empire. Kublai officially issued an edict on December 18,1271 to name the country Great Yuan to establish the Yuan dynasty. Some sources state that the full Mongolian name was Dai Ön Yehe Monggul Ulus, the area around Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of North China had been controlled by the Liao dynasty since the 10th century. In 1125, the Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchens overthrew the Liao dynasty, in the 1130s the Jin dynasty rulers, known as the Golden Kings, successfully resisted the Khamag Mongol confederation, ruled at the time by Khabul Khan, great-grandfather of Temujin. The Mongolian plateau was occupied mainly by five powerful tribal confederations, Keraites, Khamag Mongol, Naiman, Mergid, khabuls successor was Ambaghai Khan, who was betrayed by the Tatars, handed over to the Jurchen, and executed. The Mongols retaliated by raiding the frontier, resulting in a failed Jurchen counter-attack in 1143, in 1147, the Jin somewhat changed their policy, signing a peace treaty with the Mongols and withdrawing from a score of forts. The Mongols then resumed attacks on the Tatars to avenge the death of their late khan, the Jin and Tatar armies defeated the Mongols in 1161. During the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century and it is thought that as a result, a rapid increase in the number of war horses and other livestock significantly enhanced Mongol military strength. Known during his childhood as Temujin, Genghis Khan was the son of a Mongol chieftain, when he was young he was from one of Yesugis orphaned and deserted families, he rose very rapidly by working with Toghrul Khan of the Kerait. Kurtait was the most powerful Mongol leader during this time and was given the Chinese title Wang which means Prince, Temujin went to war with Wang Khan. After Temujin defeated Wang Khan he gave himself the name Genghis Khan and he then enlarged his Mongol state under himself and his kin

2.
Ilkhanate
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The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate, was established as a khanate that formed the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire, ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu. It was founded in the 13th century and was based primarily in Iran as well as neighboring territories, such as present-day Azerbaijan and the central and eastern parts of present-day Turkey. The Ilkhanate was originally based on the campaigns of Genghis Khan in the Khwarazmian Empire in 1219–24 and was founded by Hulagu Khan, with the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate. At its greatest extent, the state expanded into territories that comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, western Afghanistan. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, would convert to Islam, according to the historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, Kublai Khan granted Hulagu the title of Ilkhan after his defeat of Ariq Böke. The term il-Khan means subordinate khan and refers to their initial deference to Möngke Khan, the title Ilkhan, borne by the descendants of Hulagu and later other Borjigin princes in Persia, does not materialize in the sources until after 1260. When Muhammad II of Khwarezm executed a contingent of merchants dispatched by the Mongols, the Mongols overran the empire, occupying the major cities and population centers between 1219 and 1221. Persian Iraq was ravaged by the Mongol detachment under Jebe and Subedei, Transoxiana also came under Mongol control after the invasion. The undivided area west of the Transoxiana was the inheritance of Genghis Khans Borjigin family, thus, the families of the latters four sons appointed their officials under the Great Khans governors, Chin-Temür, Nussal, and Korguz, in that region. Muhammads son Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu returned to Iran in c.1224 after his exile in India, the rival Turkic states, which were all that remained of his fathers empire, quickly declared their allegiance to Jalal. He repulsed the first Mongol attempt to take Central Persia, however, Jalal ad-Din was overwhelmed and crushed by Chormaqans army sent by the Great Khan Ögedei in 1231. During the Mongol expedition, Azerbaijan and the southern Persian dynasties in Fars and Kerman voluntarily submitted to the Mongols, to the west, Hamadan and the rest of Persia was secured by Chormaqan. The Mongols invaded Armenia and Georgia in 1234 or 1236, completing the conquest of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1238 and they began to attack the western parts of Greater Armenia, which was under the Seljuks, the following year. In 1236 Ögedei was commanded to raise up Khorassan and proceeded to populate Herat, the Mongol military governors mostly made camp in the Mughan plain in what is now Azerbaijan. Realizing the danger posed by the Mongols, the rulers of Mosul, Chormaqan divided the Transcaucasia region into three districts based on the Mongol military hierarchy. In Georgia, the population was divided into eight tumens. By 1237 the Mongol Empire had subjugated most of Persia, Armenia, Georgia, as well as all of Afghanistan and Kashmir. After the battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, the Mongols under Baiju occupied Anatolia, while the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the Empire of Trebizond became vassals of the Mongols

3.
Sis (ancient city)
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Sis was the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The massive fortified complex is just to the southwest of the modern Turkish town of Kozan in Adana Province, Sis was one of the Hittite settlements on the Cilician plain between the mountains and the Mediterranean coast. Sis appears to have been a village in the Roman province of Cilicia Secunda. The names Sisan or Sisia are first mentioned in the 5th and 6th centuries in Greek, in 703-04 A. D. the Byzantine settlers repulsed an Arab attack, but were soon forced to abandon the town, which became a frontier post for the Abbasid Caliphate. The Caliph al-Mutawakkil reconstructed the Byzantine defenses in the mid-9th century, the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas recaptured Sis in 962, only to have it become an Armenian possession in 1113, when it was occupied by Rubenid Baron T‛oros I and repaired. From the late 12th through the 13th centuries the castle was enlarged during the reigns of King Levon I and King Het‛um I with a “palace, ” residential buildings, churches. Wilbrand von Oldenburg, a Teutonic monk who visited Sis in 1212, found a complete, het‛um’s wife, Zapēl, is credited with building a hospital there in 1241. A fragment of an inscription still in situ within the castle mentions “Het‛um. ”After Hromkla was conquered by the Egyptian Mamluks. In 1266 the Mamluks looted and burnt the city, in 1275 the Mamluks again surrounded the city, but were defeated by Armenian forces. A century later, in 1369 the Mamluks again conquered the city, finally, in 1375 the Mamluks took the city, looted and burnt it, and captured the king and many lords. With Sis fallen also fell the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, according to Gregory of Akner, Into the early 20th century Armenians continued to inhabit the town where several late medieval residential structures were preserved. The castle at Sis is one of the largest fortified sites in the Levant, if laid from end to end, the circuit walls would measure almost 3 kilometers in length. The walls, towers, vaulted undercrofts, cisterns, and residential buildings are carefully adapted into the folds of the lofty outcrop of limestone, the vast majority of these constructions are built with well-cut rusticated ashlar, a masonry typical of Armenian fortifications. There are fragments of Byzantine walls as well as a corridor at the southeast which was built during the Mamluk occupation and has an inscription in Arabic. Because of its location, Sis has indivisibility with the castles at Andıl, Anazarbus. One of the chapels, Kara Kilise, still preserves the apse, Kozan, Adana Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

4.
Armenian language
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The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. Like Hellenic Greek, it has its own branch in the language tree. It is the language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own script, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots. Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages and it is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups, Armenia was a monolingual country by the 2nd century BC at the latest. Its language has a literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to an extent by Greek, Persian. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible and he is also credited by some with the creation of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. In The Anabasis, Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. W. M. However, unlike shared innovations, the retention of archaisms is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, loan words from Iranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two meant that Iranian and Armenian were the same language. The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann used the method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the older Armenian vocabulary. Meillets hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse, eric P. Hamp supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian. Nevertheless, as Fortson comments, by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, graeco--Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-third millennium BC

5.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole

6.
Old French
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Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgundy. As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues doïl were contrasted with the langue doc, in these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, at the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language, since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The Capetians langue doïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution. In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues doïl, during the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue doc-speaking territories in the south. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, the earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints lives, the Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text. The first of these is the area of the chansons de geste. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland, a fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodels other two categories—the Matter of Rome and the Matter of Britain—concern the French romance or roman, around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose, the most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar to find, lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères. By the late 13th century, the tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets

7.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population

8.
Syriac language
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Syriac /ˈsɪri. æk/, also known as Syriac Aramaic, is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia. Indeed, Syriac literature comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Neo-Assyrian Empire when they conquered the various Aramean city-kingdoms to its west. The Achaemenid Empire, which rose after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, also adopted Old Aramaic as its official language, during the course of the third and fourth centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity. Along with Latin and Greek, Syriac became one of the three most important Christian languages in the centuries of the Christian Era. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic. Syriac remains the language of Syriac Christianity to this day. Syriac is a Middle Aramaic language and, as such, a language of the Northwestern branch of the Semitic family and it is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. Syriac was the local accent of Aramaic in Edessa, that evolved under the influence of Church of the East and it has been found as far afield as Hadrians Wall in Ancient Britain, with inscriptions written by Assyrian and Aramean soldiers of the Roman Empire. Modern Syriac/Modern Syriac Aramaic is an occasionally used to refer to the modern Eastern Aramaic languages. In this terminology, Modern Syriac is divided into, Modern Western Syriac Aramaic, note however that these are sometimes excluded from the category of Modern Syriac. The modern varieties are, therefore, not discussed in this article, in 132 BC, the kingdom of Osroene was founded in Edessa and Proto-Syriac evolved in that kingdom. Many Syriac-speakers still look to Edessa as the cradle of their language, there are about eighty extant early Syriac inscriptions, dated to the first three centuries AD. All of these examples of the language are non-Christian. As an official language, Syriac was given a relatively coherent form, style, in the 3rd century, churches in Edessa began to use Syriac as the language of worship. There is evidence that the adoption of Syriac, the language of the Assyrian people, was to effect mission, much literary effort was put into the production of an authoritative translation of the Bible into Syriac, the Peshitta. At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry, in 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire fled to the Sassanid Empire to escape persecution and growing animosity with Greek-speaking Christians. The Christological differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian schism in the Syriac-speaking world, as a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and eastern varieties. Syriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various Aramaic languages and its corpus covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history, philosophy, science, medicine and natural history

9.
Armenian Apostolic Church
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The Armenian Apostolic Church is the national church of the Armenian people. Part of Oriental Orthodoxy, it is one of the most ancient Christian communities, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in the early 4th century. The church claims to have originated in the missions of Apostles Bartholomew and it is sometimes referred to as the Armenian Orthodox Church or Gregorian Church. It is also known as the Armenian Church. The Armenian Church believes apostolic succession through the apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus, according to legend, the latter of the two apostles is said to have cured Abgar V of Edessa of leprosy with the Image of Edessa, leading to his conversion in 30 AD. After this, Bartholomew came to Armenia, bringing a portrait of the virgin Mary, Bartholomew then converted the sister of Sanatruk, who once again martyred a female relative and the apostle who converted her. Both apostles ordained native bishops before their execution, and some other Armenians had been ordained outside of Armenia by James the Just. According to Eusebius and Tertullian, Armenian Christians were persecuted by kings Axidares, Khosrov I, and Tiridates III, ancient Armenias adoption of Christianity as a state religion has been referred to by Nina Garsoïan as probably the most crucial step in its history. This conversion distinguished it from its Iranian and Mazdean roots and protected it from further Parthian influence, other scholars as well have stated that the acceptance of Christianity by the Arsacid-Armenian rulers was partly in defiance of the Sassanids. When King Trdat IV made Christianity the state religion of Armenia between 301 and 314, it was not a new religion there. It had penetrated the country from at least the third century, Tiridates declared Gregory to be the first Catholicos of the Armenian Church and sent him to Caesarea to be consecrated. Upon his return, Gregory tore down shrines to idols, built churches and monasteries, while meditating in the old capital city of Vagharshapat, Gregory had a vision of Christ descending to the earth and striking it with a hammer. From that spot arose a great Christian temple with a huge cross and he was convinced that God intended him to build the main Armenian church there. With the kings help he did so in accord with his vision and he renamed the city Etchmiadzin, which means the place of the descent of the only-begotten. Initially the Armenian church participated in the church world. Its Catholicos was represented at the First Council of Nicea and the First Council of Constantinople, although unable to attend the Council of Ephesus, the Catholicos Isaac Parthiev sent a message agreeing with its decisions. Christianity was strengthened in Armenia in the 5th century by the translation of the Bible into the Armenian language by the theologian, monk. Before the 5th century, Armenians had a language

10.
Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services

11.
Syriac Christianity
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With a history going back to the 1st century AD, Syriac Christianity is, in modern times, represented by denominations primarily in the Middle East, Asia Minor and in Kerala, India. Christianity began in the Middle East in Jerusalem among Jewish Aramaic-speaking Semitic peoples of Judah and it quickly spread, initially to other Semitic peoples, in Parthian-ruled Assyria and Mesopotamia, Roman-ruled Syria, Phoenicia, southern and eastern Asia Minor, and northwestern Persia and Malta. Adherents sometimes identify as Syriacs or Syrians, Syriac Christian heritage is transmitted through various Neo Aramaic dialects of old Aramaic. Unlike the Greek Christian culture, Assyrian Christian culture borrowed much from early Rabbinic Judaism, Antioch was the political capital of this culture, and was the seat of the Patriarchs of the church. However, Antioch was heavily Hellenized, and the Assyrian cities of Edessa, Nisibis and this split owed just as much to the politics of the day as it did to theological orthodoxy. Ctesiphon, which was at the also the Sassanid capital. After the Council of Chalcedon in 451, many Syriac Christians within the Roman Empire rebelled against its decisions, the Patriarchate of Antioch was then divided between a Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian communion. The Chalcedonians were often labelled Melkites, while their opponents were labelled as Monophysites and Jacobites, the Maronite Church found itself caught between the two, but claims to have always remained faithful to the Catholic Church and in communion with the bishop of Rome, the Pope. The church has persisted as an entity under Islamic rule. The community was one of those granted autonomy in governing itself in religious, in the 19th century many left for other parts of Christendom, creating a substantial diaspora. Over time, some groups within each of these branches have entered into communion with the Church of Rome, when they lost Assyria itself to the Parthian Empire, they retained the name Syria but only applied it to what had been Aramea, which they still retained. The Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Osroene was the first Christian kingdom in history, in 431 A. D. the Council of Ephesus declared Nestorianism to be a heresy. The Nestorian priests, who were persecuted in the Byzantine Empire, sought refuge in Mesopotamia where the Church of the East was dominant, there was a synthesis between the Assyrian Church and Nestorian doctrine. From there they spread Christianity to Persia, India, China and this was the beginning of the Nestorian Church, the eastern branch of Syrian Christianity. The western branch, the Jacobite Church, appeared after the Council of Chalcedon condemned Monophysitism in 451 A. D and these people are in fact ethnic Assyrians originating from the Assyrian homeland in northern Iraq. The older Assyrian designation has almost completely replaced the word Nestorian, however, the word Nestorian continues to be used in some Western academic literature. The word Syrian has become ambiguous in English since it can refer now to a citizen of Syria regardless of ethnicity, in Arabic, however, the word for a citizen of Syria has a different form from the traditional word for an ethnic Assyrian/Syrian. The Maronites in Lebanon are divided between those who claim Lebanese-Phoenician national identity and those who claim Arab national identity, the Maronite Church, a West Syrian Rite Eastern Catholic Church

12.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership

13.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period

14.
Leo I of Armenia
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Leo II, also Leon II, Levon II or Lewon II, was the tenth lord of Armenian Cilicia or “Lord of the Mountains”, and the first king of Armenian Cilicia. During his reign, Leo succeeded in establishing Cilician Armenia as a powerful, Leo eagerly led his kingdom alongside the armies of the Third Crusade and provided the crusaders with provisions, guides, pack animals and all manner of aid. Under his rule, Armenian power in Cilicia was at its apogee, in 1194–1195, when he was planning to receive the title of king, he instituted a union of the Armenian church with Rome. With the signing of the Act of Union, his coronation proceeded without delay and he was consecrated as king on 6 January 1198 or 1199, in the Church of Holy Wisdom at Tarsus. He envisioned annexing the Principality of Antioch to his kingdom, thus reinforcing his authority along much of the northeastern Mediterranean coastline. Levon first put this plan into action in 1194 by seizing the fortress of Baghras after Saladin. His greatest triumph was achieved at the beginning of 1216 when at the head of his army he occupied Antioch and installed his grandnephew, Raymond-Roupen remained in power until Leo’s death. The transforming of the Armenian court, following the pattern of the Frankish courts, commerce was greatly developed during the reign of Leo, he granted charters regarding trade and commercial privileges to Genoa, Venice and Pisa. These charters provided their holders with special tax exemptions in exchange for their merchandising trade and they encouraged the establishment of Italian merchant communities in Tarsus, Adana and Mamistra, and became a large source of revenue for the growth and development of Cilician Armenia. He was the son of Stephen, the third son of Leo I. His mother was Rita, a daughter of Sempad, Lord of Barbaron, Leo’s father, who was on his way to attend a banquet given by the Byzantine governor of Cilicia, Andronicus Euphorbenus, was murdered on 7 February 1165. Their paternal uncle, Mleh I, lord of Armenian Cilicia had made a host of enemies by his cruelties in his country, the seigneurs of Cilician Armenia elected Leo’s brother, Roupen III to occupy the throne of the principality. In 1183, Hethum III of Lampron, allied with Prince Bohemond III of Antioch, but Bohemond III, rushing to the aid of Hethum, treacherously made Roupen prisoner. His brother’s absence gave Leo the opportunity to put his political skills to practice as the interim guardian of the Roupenian House. Roupen’s release required payment of a ransom, and the submission of Adana. When Roupen returned from the captivity, he transferred the power to his brother, Leo and retired to the monastery of Trazarg. Large bands of the nomad Turkomans had been crossing the borders, advancing almost as far as Sis and laying waste on all sides. Soon afterwards, Leo married Isabelle, a niece of the Princess Sibylle, the following year, taking advantage of the troubled condition in the Sultanate of Rûm that preceded the death of Kilij Arslan II, Leo turned against the Seljuks

15.
Mamluk
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Mamluk is an Arabic designation for slaves. The term is most commonly used to refer to Muslim slave soldiers and these were mostly enslaved Turkic peoples, Egyptian Copts, Circassians, Abkhazians, and Georgians. Many Mamluks were also of Balkan origin, over time, the mamluks became a powerful military knightly caste in various societies that were controlled by Muslim rulers. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Mesopotamia, in some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as emirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate centered on Egypt and Syria, the Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut. They had earlier fought the western European Christian Crusaders in 1154-1169 and 1213-1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt, in 1302 the mamluks formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades. While mamluks were purchased as property, their status was above ordinary slaves, in a sense they were like enslaved mercenaries. In the Middle Ages, the Mamlukes took up the practice of furusiyya chivalry although Mamluk knights were slaves until their service ended, the Arabic term for a knight was fāris, The faris and the notion of furusiyya originated in pre-Muslim Persian brotherhoods. Within the Muslim world, the fursān became prized as ideal warriors and they were also trained in wrestling, and their martial skills were honed first on foot as piéton and then perfected when as mounted warriors. They were popularly used as heavy knightly cavalry by a number of different Islamic kingdoms and empires, including the Ayyubid dynasty, the origins of the mamluk system are disputed. Historians agree that a military caste such as the mamluks appeared to develop in Islamic societies beginning with the ninth-century Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad. When in the century has not been determined. Up until the 1990s, it was believed that the earliest mamluks were known as ghilman and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs. By the end of the 9th century, such warrior slaves had become the dominant element in the military, conflict between these ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Mutasim to move his capital to the city of Samarra, but this did not succeed in calming tensions. The caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by some of these slave-soldiers in 861, adult slaves and freemen both served as warriros. The mamluk system developed later, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870s and it included the systematic training of young slaves in military and martial skills. The Mamluk system is considered to have been an experiment of al-Muwaffaq. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted, after the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either mamluks or ghilman, were used throughout the Islamic world as the basis of military power

16.
Seljuq Armenia
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Although the native Bagratuni Dynasty was founded under favourable circumstances, the feudal system gradually weakened the country by eroding loyalty to the central government. Thus internally enfeebled, Armenia proved an easy victim for the Byzantines, the Seljuq dynasty under Alp Arslan took the city of Ani in 1064. In 1071, after the defeat of the Byzantine forces by the Seljuq Turks at the Battle of Manzikert, the Saltukids were centered in Arzan ar-Rum following the Battle of Manzikert, who ruled from 1071 to 1202. Shah-Armens were centered in Ahlat on the shore of the Lake Van. They ruled most of modern Bitlis and Van provinces and parts of Batman, Siirt, the Shaddadids were a dynasty of Kurdish origin who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1174. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia. The Kingdom of Syunik-Baghk was an Armenian state that ruled the territories of Syunik, Artsakh, various Armenian villages and towns remained semi-independent under Armenian rule. Among these were Sassun, Moks, the Hayhurum rule of Melitene under Gabriel of Melitene, and other smaller states

17.
Byzantine Empire under the Angelos dynasty
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During this time, many different imperial dynasties ruled over the empire, in the context of Byzantine history, the period c.1185 – c.1204 AD was under the Angeloi dynasty. The Angeloi rose to the following the deposition of Andronikos I Komnenos. The Angeloi were female-line descendants of the previous dynasty, the Fourth Crusade is seen by historians today as the death knell of the Byzantine Empire. It is therefore no exaggeration to suggest that the Angeloi led Byzantium to her ultimate demise, every emperor of the Angeloi dynasty was either deposed or killed, with the exception of Isaac Angelus who was restored for a brief time after his desposement. When Manuel I Komnenos died on 24 September 1180, his son and he passed his entire life at play or the chase, and contracted several habits of pronounced viciousness. Consequently, this child, unfit to rule both physically and mentally ruled with a led by his mother, Maria of Antioch. Her Frankish connections guaranteed her the hatred of the Byzantine Empire, Maria then decided to appoint an unpopular pro-western Byzantine also named Alexios Komnenos, a nephew of Manuel Komnenos, to be her chief advisor in the regency. It is said that he was accustomed to spend the greater part of the day in bed. | The incompetence of Alexios regency led to much corruption throughout the Empire. It is little wonder therefore that Andronikos Komnenos, a grandson of Alexios I, Andronikos was over 6 feet tall, his flattering charms stole the hearts of many noble women and with it earned the anger of their menfolk. Exiled by Manuel Komnenos, he returned in 1180 following his death, despite his senior age of 64 years in 1182, Andronikos retained the good looks of his forties. In August of that year Andronikos sparked a rebellion by marching on to the Capital, the army and the navy did not hesitate to join him and soon rebellion broke out in Constantinople in the name of Andronikos. A massacre of Latins then proceeded, with the women, children and even the sick in the hospitals of the Capital shown no mercy, the trading rights of the Venetians, granted by Alexios almost a century earlier, were also revoked. These actons made the powerful enemies in western Europe. The Emperor and his mother, Maria of Antioch, were sent to an Imperial Villa, Maria Komnene, daughter of Manuel Komnenos by his first wife Bertha of Sulzbach, was poisoned along with her husband Renier of Montferrat. Next Alexios mother, Maria of Antioch, was strangled in her cell, when Andronikos was finally crowned co-emperor in September 1183, he waited two months before disposing of Alexios II Komnenos. Afterwards, he took his 12-year-old wife Agnes of France for himself, early on, Andronikos ruled wisely – he began by attacking the corruption within the taxation and administration of the empire. However, these calamities were nothing in comparison to the storm that had lain dormant, between late 1184 and early 1185, William II of Sicily assembled a host of 80,000 soldiers and sailors and some 200–300 ships to conquer the empire. Andronikos, despite his military reputation was paralysed by indecision

18.
Bagratid Armenia
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Ashots prestige rose as he was courted by both Byzantine and Arab leaders eager to maintain a buffer state near their frontiers. The Caliphate recognized Ashot as prince of princes in 862 and, later on, the establishment of the Bagratuni kingdom later led to the founding of several other Armenian principalities and kingdoms, Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars, Khachen and Syunik. Unity among all states was sometimes difficult to maintain while the Byzantines. Under the reign of Ashot III, Ani became the capital and grew into a thriving economic. The first half of the 11th century saw the decline and eventual collapse of the kingdom, the weakening of the Sassanian Empire during the 7th century led to the rise of another regional power, the Muslim Arabs. The Umayyad Arabs had conquered vast swaths of territory in the Middle East and, turning north, theodore Rshtuni, the Armenian Curopalates, signed a peace treaty with the Caliphate although the continuing war with the Arabs and Byzantines soon lead to further destruction throughout Armenia. In 661, Armenian leaders agreed to submit under Muslim rule while the latter conceded to recognize Grigor Mamikonian from the powerful Mamikonian nakharar family as ishkhan of Armenia, known as al-Arminiya with its capital at Dvin, the province was headed by an ostikan, or governor. However, Umayyad rule in Armenia grew in cruelty in the early 8th century, revolts against the Arabs spread throughout Armenia until 705, when under the pretext of meeting for negotiations, the Arab ostikan of Nakhichevan massacred almost all of the Armenian nobility. The rebellions failure also resulted in the disintegration of the Mamikonian house which lost most of the land it controlled. A third and final rebellion, stemming from similar grievances as the second, was launched in 774 under the leadership of Mushegh Mamikonian, the Bagratuni family had done its best to improve its relations with the Abbasid caliphs ever since they took power in 750. Fortunately for the Armenians, the number of Arabs residing in Armenia never grew in number to form a majority nor were the emirates fully subordinate to the Caliph. As historian George Bournoutian observes, this fragmentation of Arab authority provided the opportunity for the resurgence of the Bagratuni family headed by Ashot Msaker, the brothers, however, were unable to resolve their differences with one another nor able to form a unified front against the Muslims. In 857, Smbat had been succeeded by his son Ashot I and he assumed the title prince of princes in 862 and appointed his brother Abas sparapet, as they began to push the Arabs out from their base in Tayk. His initial efforts to expel the ostikan of Arminiya failed, although this did not dissuade him in taking advantage of the Byzantine-Arab rivalry. A synod of Armenian church leaders was convoked and a letter laden with equivocal wording sent to Constantinople was able to sustain a temporary agreement between the two churches, in any case, religious differences mattered little to the Byzantines in consideration of the menace the Arabs continued to pose. This act was not lost on Basil who similarly sent a crown to Ashot, Ashot relocated his throne to the fortress-city of Bagaran and it was here where his coronation ceremony was held sometime in 884 or 885. Thus, Ashot restored the Armenian monarchy and became Armenias first king since 428 and he secured the favor of both the Byzantines and Arabs but ultimately showed loyalty to Basil and chose to conclude an alliance with the Byzantines in 885. Ashot was not the sole Armenian prince of the region yet he commanded the support of the other princes who recognized his authority in his becoming of king

19.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade

20.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age

21.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam

22.
Rubenids
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The Rubenids or Roupenids were an Armenian dynasty who dominated parts of Cilicia, and who established the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The dynasty takes its name from its founder, the Armenian prince Ruben I, the Rubenids were princes, later kings, of Cilicia from around 1080 until they were surpassed by the Hethumids in the mid-thirteenth century. Intermarriage with European crusading families was common, and European religious, political, Roupen I Constantine I Thoros I Constantine II Leo I Thoros II Roupen II Mleh Roupen III Leo II Leo I Isabella

23.
History of Armenia
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Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of Ararat. The original Armenian name for the country was Hayk, later Hayastan, translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name of the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya, the historical enemy of Hayk, Hayastan, was Bel, or in other words Baal. The word Bel is named in the Bible at Isaiah 46,1, the name Armenia was given to the country by the surrounding states, and it is traditionally derived from Armenak or Aram. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire, Mitanni, soon after the Hayasa-Azzi were the Nairi and the Kingdom of Urartu, who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, dates back to the 8th century BC. Erebuni has been described as designed as an administrative and religious centre. The Iron Age kingdom of Urartu was replaced by the Orontid dynasty, in 301, Arsacid Armenia was the first sovereign nation to accept Christianity as a state religion. The Armenians later fell under Byzantine, Sassanid Persian, and Islamic hegemony, after the fall of the kingdom in 1045, and the subsequent Seljuk conquest of Armenia in 1064, the Armenians established a kingdom in Cilicia, where they prolonged their sovereignty to 1375. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was conquered by Russia, Armenia, from then on corresponding to much of Eastern Armenia, regained independence in 1918, with the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia, and in 1991, the Republic of Armenia. Stone tools from 325,000 years ago have been found in Armenia which indicate the presence of humans at this time. The Armenian Highland shows traces of settlement from the Neolithic era, archaeological surveys in 2010 and 2011 have resulted in the discovery of the worlds earliest known leather shoe, straw skirt, and wine-making facility at the Areni-1 cave complex. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture of the central Transcaucasus region is one of the earliest known cultures in the area. An early Bronze-Age culture in the area is the Kura-Araxes culture, the earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain, thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 BC, proceeding westward and to the south-east into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van. Today, the Modern Assyrians refer to the Armenians by the name Armani, the word is also speculated to be related to the Mannaeans, which may be identical to the biblical Minni. The earliest forms of the word Hayastan, an ethonym the Armenians use to designate their country, might come from Hittite sources of the Late Bronze Age. Another record mentioned by pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt in the 33rd year of his reign as the people of Ermenen, however, what all these attestations refer to cannot be determined with certainty, and the earliest certain attestation of the name Armenia comes from the Behistun Inscription. Between 1500 and 1200 BC, the Hayasa-Azzi existed in the half of the Armenian Highland

24.
Name of Armenia
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The name Armenia enters English via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἀρμενία. The Armenian endonym for the Armenian people and country is hayer and hayk’, the exact etymology of the name is unknown, and there are various speculative attempts to connect it to older toponyms or ethnonyms. The earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC, in his trilingual Behistun Inscription, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu as Armina and Harminuya. In Greek, Αρμένιοι Armenians is attested from about the same time, herodotus, in c.440 BC, said the Armenians were equipped like Phrygians, being Phrygian colonists. Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. Although disputed and unproven, some speculations on the origin of the Armenia exonym have been proposed. It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina, there are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. The earliest is from an inscription which mentions Armânum together with Ibla as territories conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad in c.2250 BC identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. However, many historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Armanî which was conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad, with the Syrian city of Aleppo, the name has also been claimed as a variant of Urmani, attested epigraphically in an inscription of Menuas of Urartu. Minni is also a Biblical name of the region, appearing in Jeremiah alongside Ararat and Ashchenaz, probably the same as the Minnai of Assyrian inscriptions, Armenia is interpreted by some as ḪARMinni, that is, the mountainous region of the Minni. Some authors have connected the Indo-European root *ar- meaning to assemble, there have been further speculations as to the existence of a Bronze Age tribe of the Armens, either identical to or forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi. In this case, Armenia would be a rather than a toponym. Armenologist Nicholas Adontz has rejected some of these speculations in his 1946 book, Armenian tradition has an eponymous ancestor, Aram, a lineal descendent of Hayk, son of Harma and father of Ara the Beautiful. Aram is sometimes equated with Arame of Urartu, the earliest known king of Urartu, the endonym Hayk’ in the same tradition is traced to Hayk himself. The names Armen and Arman, feminine Arminé, are given names by Armenians. Armin is also a Persian given name, modern terms for Armenians and Armenia in Armenian and neighboring languages, Horace Abram Rigg, Jr. A Note on the Names Armânum and Urartu Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.57, Armenian History, Tacentral. com Alternate Names or Name Variants for Republic of Armenia History of Armenia

25.
History of Armenia (book)
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It contains unique material on ancient Armenian legends, and such information on pagan Armenian as has survived. It also contains plentiful data on the history and culture of contiguous countries, the book had an enormous impact on Armenian historiography. In the text, the author self-identifies as a disciple of Saint Mesrop, and states that he composed his work at the request of Isaac, until the 19th century most scholars accepted Movsess History as an authentic script. For example, in the book Adgbars queen, Helena, is a pious Christian who cannot live among the pagans, according to Tovma Artsruni, writing in the 10th century, there was also a fourth part which brings the history down to the time of the Zeno. This first book contains 32 chapters, from Adam to Alexander the Great and these gradually enter historicity with Tigran I, who is also mentioned in the Cyropaedia of Xenophon, but Aravan to Vahé are again otherwise unknown. 68 chapters, from the death of Tiridates III to Gregory the Illuminator, under Soviet rule the book was published many times. R. W. Thomson, English translation,1978, R. W. Thomson, English translation, rev. ed.2006. Commentary on the Literary Sources by R. Thomson A MEDIEVAL ARMENIAN SOURCE ON THE HISTORY OF THE CAUCASUS AS ANALYZED BY JEAN SAINT-MARTIN

26.
Armenian hypothesis
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The two presented the hypothesis in two articles in Vestnik drevnej istorii and then in a much larger work. They claim that the Indo-European languages came from a language in Armenia to the Pontic steppe from which it expanded, according to the Kurgan hypothesis, the Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Greek and Armenian branches split from the Armenian homeland. The Indo-Hittite model and does not include the Anatolian languages in its scenario, the phonological peculiarities proposed in the glottalic theory would be best preserved in Armenian and the Germanic languages. Armenian remained in situ and would be particularly archaic despite of its late attestation, proto-Greek would be practically equivalent to Mycenaean Greek from the 17th century BC and closely associate Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan migration to India at about the same time. The hypothesis argues for the latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European, roughly a millennium later than the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis and it opposes the Anatolian hypothesis in spite of the geographical proximity of the respective suggested Urheimaten by diverging from the timeframe suggested there by as much as three millennia. Robert Drews says that most of the chronological and historical arguments seem fragile at best, however, he argues that it is far more powerful as a linguistic model, providing insights into the relationship between the Indo-European and the Semitic and Kartvelian languages. And we have known that from the second millennium onward. It is thus not surprising to find that what clues we have suggest that chariot warfare was pioneered in eastern Anatolia. Finally, our picture of what the PIE speakers did, J. Grepin wrote in a review that the model of linguistic relationships is the most complex, far reaching and fully supported of this century. Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks, argues for late Greek arrival in the framework of the Armenian hypothesis, martiros Kavoukjian, Armenia, Subartu, and Sumer, the Indo-European homeland and ancient Mesopotamia, trans. Indo-European family tree, showing Indo-European languages and sub branches Giacomo Benedett, peopleOfFar, The Armenian Plateau Hypothesis Gains In Plausibility Dienekes Anthropology Blog, Origin of Early Transcaucasian Culture

27.
Prehistoric Armenia
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The modern territory of Armenia has been settled by human groups from the Lower Paleolithic to modern days. The first human traces are supported by the presence of Acheulean tools, middle and Upper Paleolithic settlements have also been identified such as at the Hovk 1 cave. The Armenian Highland finally shows traces of settlement from the Neolithic era, the Shulaveri-Shomu culture of the central Transcaucasus region is one of the earliest known prehistoric culture in the area, carbon-dated to roughly 6000 -4000 BC. Another early culture in the area is the Kura-Araxes culture, assigned to the period of ca.3300 -2000 BC, the most recent and important excavation is at the Nor Geghi 1 Stone Age site in the Hrazdan river valley. In the Ararat plain, the sites of Aknashen and Aratashen are known to belong to the Neolithic period, the main object of early Assyrian incursions into Armenia was to obtain metals. The iron-working age followed that of bronze everywhere, opening a new epoch of human progress and its influence is noticeable in Armenia, and the transition period is well marked. Tombs whose metal contents are all of bronze are of an older epoch, in most of the cemeteries explored, both bronze and iron furniture were found, indicating the gradual advance into the Iron Age

28.
Stone Age
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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance

29.
Chalcolithic
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The Copper Age was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The archaeological site of Belovode on the Rudnik mountain in Serbia contains the worlds oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting from 5000 BCE, the multiple names result from multiple recognitions of the period. Originally, the term Bronze Age meant that either copper or bronze was being used as the hard substance for the manufacture of tools. In 1881, John Evans, recognizing that the use of copper often preceded the use of bronze and he did not include the transitional period in the tripartite system of Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age but placed it at the beginning outside of it. He did not, however, present it as a fourth age, in 1884, Gaetano Chierici, perhaps following the lead of Evans, renamed it in Italian as the Eneo-litica, or Bronze-stone transition. The phrase was never intended to mean that the period was the one in which both bronze and stone were used. The Copper Age features the use of copper, excluding bronze, moreover, litica simply names the Stone Age as the point from which the transition began and is not another -lithic age. Subsequently, British scholars used either Evanss Copper Age or the term Eneolithic, around 1900, many writers began to substitute Chalcolithic for Eneolithic, to avoid the false segmentation. It was then that the misunderstanding began among those who did not know Italian, the -lithic was seen as a new -lithic age, a part of the Stone Age in which copper was used, which may appear paradoxical. Today Copper Age, Eneolithic and Chalcolithic are used synonymously to mean Evanss original definition of Copper Age, there was an independent invention of copper and bronze smelting first by Andean civilizations in South America extended later by sea commerce to the Mesoamerican civilization in West Mexico. The literature of European archaeology, in general, avoids the use of Chalcolithic, the Copper Age in the Middle East and the Caucasus began in the late 5th millennium BCE and lasted for about a millennium before it gave rise to the Early Bronze Age. The transition from the European Copper Age to Bronze Age Europe occurs about the same time, an archaeological site in Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of coppermaking from 7,500 years ago. In Serbia, an axe was found at Prokuplje, which indicates that humans were using metals in Europe by 7,500 years ago. Knowledge of the use of copper was far more widespread than the metal itself, the European Battle Axe culture used stone axes modeled on copper axes, even with imitation mold marks carved in the stone. Ötzi the Iceman, who was found in the Ötztal Alps in 1991, examples of Chalcolithic cultures in Europe include Vila Nova de São Pedro and Los Millares on the Iberian Peninsula. Pottery of the Beaker people has found at both sites, dating to several centuries after copper-working began there. The Beaker culture appears to have copper and bronze technologies in Europe. The term Chalcolithic is not generally used by British prehistorians, who disagree whether it applies in the British context, in Bhirrana, the earliest Indus civilization site, copper bangles and arrowheads were found

30.
Areni-1 cave complex
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The Areni-1 cave complex is located near the Areni village in southern Armenia along the Arpa River. In 2010, it was announced that the earliest known shoe was found at the site, in January 2011, the earliest known winery in the world was announced to have been found. Also in 2011, the discovery of a straw skirt dating to 3900 BC was reported, in 2009, the oldest brain was discovered

31.
Hayk
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Hayk or Hayg, also known as Haik Nahapet is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the History of Armenia attributed to the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene, the name of the patriarch, Հայկ Hayk is not exactly homophonous with the name for Armenia, Հայք Hayk’. Հայք Hayk’ is the plural in Classical Armenian of հայ. Some claim that the etymology of Hayk from Hayk is impossible, nevertheless, Hayk and Haig are usually connected to hay and hayer, the self-designation of the Armenians. Armen Petroyan believes that the name Hayk can very plausibly be derived from the Indo-European *poti- ‘master, lord, master of the house, Hayk would then be an etiological founding figure, like e. g. Asshur for the Assyrians, etc. One of Hayks most famous scions, Aram, settled in Eastern Armenia from the Mitanni kingdom, Armenian historiography of the Soviet era connected Hayk with Hayasa, mentioned in Hittite inscriptions. The Armenian word haykakan or haigagan finds its stem in this progenitor, Moses of Chorene gave Hayks genealogy as Japhet, Gomer and Tiras, Torgom. Hayks descendants are given as Amasya, Ara, Aram, Aramais, Armanak, Gegham, Hayk was also said to be the founder of the Haykazuni Dynasty. Some of the prominent Armenian royal houses such as the Arran, Bagratuni, Bznuni, Khorkhoruni, Manavazian, Syuni, according to Juansher Hayk. was prince of the seven brothers and stood in service to the giant Nimrod who first ruled the entire world as king. In Moses of Chorenes account, Hayk son of Torgom had a child named Armanak while he was living in Babylon, after the arrogant Titanid Bel made himself king over all, Hayk emigrated to the region near Mount Ararad. Hayk relocated near Mount Ararat with a household of at least 300 and settled there. On the way he had left a detachment in another settlement with his grandson Kadmos, Bel sent one of his sons to entreat him to return, but was refused. Bel decided to march against him with a force. He assembled his own army along the shore of Lake Van and told them that they must defeat and kill Bel, or die trying to do so, rather than become his slaves. In his writings Moses states that, Hayk and his men soon discovered Bels army positioned in a mountain pass, with the king in the vanguard. At Dyutsaznamart, near Julamerk southeast of Lake Van, on August 11,2492 BC or 2107 BC, Hayk slew Bel with an impossible shot using a long bow. The hill where Bel with his warriors fell, Hayk named Gerezmank meaning tombs and he embalmed the corpse of Bel and ordered it to be taken to Hark where it was to be buried in a high place in the view of the wives and sons of the king. Soon after, Hayk established the fortress of Haykaberd at the battle site and he named the region of the battle Hayk, and the site of the battle Hayots Dzor

32.
Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it

33.
Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods

34.
Hayasa-Azzi
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The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC. Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa. Others see Hayasa and Azzi as identical, records of the time between Telipinu and Tudhaliya III are sketchy. The Hittites seem to have abandoned their capital at Hattusa and moved to Sapinuwa under one of the earlier Tudhaliya kings, in the early 14th century BC, Sapinuwa was burned as well. Hattusili III records at this time that the Azzi had made Samuha its frontier and it should be borne in mind that people who view themselves as great civilizations are not always too particular about which group of so-called Barbarians they are fighting. Also at times multiple atrocities are blamed on one group as a cry for a current war. Samuha was, however, temporarily seized by forces from the country of Azzi, at this time, the kingdom of Hatti was so besieged by fierce attacks from its enemies that many neighbouring powers expected it to soon collapse. The Egyptian pharaoh, Amenhotep III, even wrote to Tarhundaradu, king of Arzawa, I have heard that everything is finished and that the country of Hattusa is paralysed. However, Tudhaliya managed to rally his forces, indeed, the speed and determination of the Hittite king may have surprised Hattis enemies including the Kaska and Azzi-Hayasa. Tudhaliya sent his general Suppiluliuma, who would serve as king himself under the title Suppiluliuma I, to Hattis northeastern frontiers. The Hayasans initially retreated from a battle with the Hittite commander. The Hittitologist Trevor R. Bryce notes, however, that Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma eventually, invaded Azzi-Hayasa, the passage recording the outcome of this battle is missing. The Hayasans were now obliged to repatriate all captured Hittite subjects, despite the restrictions imposed upon Hakkani, he was not a completely meek and submissive brother-in law of the Hittites in political and military affairs. As a condition for the release of the thousands of Hittite prisoners held in his domain, during their reigns, the cuneiform tablets of Boğazköy begin to mention the names of three successive kings who ruled over a state of Hayasa and/or Azzi. They were Karanni, Mariya, and Hakkani, when Suppiluliuma had become king himself, Hakkani proceeded to marry Suppiluliumas sister. Well, there is a law in the land of the Hatti, do not approach sisters, your sisters-in law or your cousins, that is not permitted. In Hatti Land, whosoever commits such an act does not live, in your country, you do not hesitate to marry your own sister, sister-in law or cousin, because you are not civilized. Such an act cannot be permitted in Hatti, the kingdom of Hayasa-Azzi remained a loyal Hittite vassal state for a time, perhaps hit by the same plague which claimed Suppiluliuma and his son Arnuwanda II

35.
Shupria
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Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia. The name Subartu for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records, Shupria is mentioned in the letter of Esarhaddon to the god Assur. Esarhaddon undertook an expedition against Shupria in 674, subjugating it, bronze Age collapse Proto-Armenian language Indo-European languages

36.
Mountains of Ararat
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The Mountains of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noahs Ark came to rest after the great flood. In Syrian tradition, as well as in Quranic tradition, the mountain is identified with Mount Judi in what is today Şırnak Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey. During the Middle Ages, this tradition has eclipsed the earlier association with Mount Judi in Eastern Christianity, the Mountains of Ararat in Genesis clearly refer to a general region, not a specific mountain. Biblical Ararat corresponds to Ancient Assyrian Urartu the name of the kingdom which at the time controlled the Lake Van region, the Latin Vulgate says requievitque arca super montes Armeniae, which means literally and the ark rested on the mountains of Armenia, which was changed to. Mountains of Ararat in the modern Nova Vulgata, the Book of Jubilees specifies that the Ark came to rest on one of the peaks of the Mountains of Ararat called Lubar. Mount Ararat Biblical Mount Sinai Mount Judi Searches for Noahs Ark Friedrich Murat, Ararat und Masis, Studien zur armenischen Altertumskunde und Litteratur, Heidelberg,1900

37.
Nairi
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Nairi was the Assyrian name for a confederation of tribes in the Armenian Highlands, roughly corresponding to the modern Van and Hakkâri provinces of modern Turkey. The word is used to describe the tribes who lived there. Nairi has sometimes been equated with Nihriya, known from Mesopotamian, Hittite, however, its co-occurrence with Nihriya within a single text may argue against this. During the Bronze Age collapse, the Nairi tribes were considered a strong enough to contend with both Assyria and Hatti. The Battle of Nihriya, the point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former empire of Mitanni, took place there. Nairi was incorporated into Urartu during the 10th century BC, the names of twenty-three Nairi lands were recorded by Tiglath-Pileser I. Their southernmost point was Tumme, known to have been south-west of Lake Urmia and it is believed that Nairi extended from the Tur-Abdin mountains in the south to the mountainous area southwest of Lake Van in the north. Shalmaneser III campaigned in the region, erecting a statue at the source of the Tigris, bryce states that some of his royal inscriptions indicate that the term now also denoted a specific region to the southwest of Lake Urmia, centred on the land of Hubushkia. Albrecht Goetze suggested that what he refers to as the Hurriland dissolved into a number of states that the Assyrians called Nairi. Others take this hypothesis skeptically, e. g. Benedict points out there is no evidence of the presence of Hurrites in the vicinity of Lake Van. An early, documented reference to Nairi is a tablet dated to the time of Adad-nirari I, the Nairi fought against the southern incursions of the Assyrians and would later unite into Urartu. Albrecht Götze, Hethiter, Churriter und Assyrer, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie A, journal of the American Oriental Society 80/2,1960, 100-104. Ralf-Bernhard Wartke, Urartu Das Reich am Ararat, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz/Rhein 1993 A

38.
Urartu
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Urartu, also known as Kingdom of Van, was an Iron Age kingdom centred on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands. It corresponds to the biblical Kingdom of Ararat, the language appears in cuneiform inscriptions. It is argued on linguistic evidence that came in contact with Urartian at an early date. That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the entity was already pointed out by König. The landscape corresponds to the plateau between Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Iranian Plateau, and the Caucasus Mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid-ninth century BC, the heirs of Urartu are the Armenians and their successive kingdoms. The name Urartu comes from Assyrian sources, Shalmaneser I recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of Uruatri, the Shalmaneser text uses the name Urartu to refer to a geographical region, not a kingdom, and names eight lands contained within Urartu. Urartu is cognate with the Biblical Ararat, Akkadian Urashtu and Armenian Ayrarat, the Urartian toponym Biainili was adopted in the Old Armenian as Van, Վան. Hence the names Kingdom of Van or Vannic Kingdom, scholars such as Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after the god Ḫaldi. Boris Piotrovsky wrote that the Urartians first appear in history in the 13th century BC as a league of tribes or countries which did not yet constitute a unitary state. In the Assyrian annals the term Uruatri as a name for this league was superseded during a period of years by the term land of Nairi. Scholars believe that Urartu is an Akkadian variation of Ararat of the Old Testament, indeed, Mount Ararat is located in ancient Urartian territory, approximately 120 kilometres north of its former capital. In addition to referring to the famous Biblical mountain, Ararat also appears as the name of a kingdom in Jeremiah 51,27, mentioned together with Minni, in the early sixth century BC, Urartu was replaced by the Armenian Orontid Dynasty. Shupria was part of the Urartu confederation, later, there is reference to a district in the area called Arme or Urme, which some scholars have linked to the name of Armenia. At its apogee, Urartu stretched from the borders of northern Mesopotamia to the southern Caucasus, including present-day Armenia, archaeological sites within its boundaries include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Haykaberd. Urartu fortresses included Erebuni, Van Fortress, Argishtihinili, Anzaf, Haykaberd, schulz discovered and copied numerous cuneiform inscriptions, partly in Assyrian and partly in a hitherto unknown language. Schulz also re-discovered the Kelishin stele, bearing an Assyrian-Urartian bilingual inscription, a summary account of his initial discoveries was published in 1828. Schulz and four of his servants were murdered by Kurds in 1829 near Başkale and his notes were later recovered and published in Paris in 1840

39.
Scythians
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The Scythian languages belonged to the Eastern branch of the Iranian languages. Ancient Greek historians spoke of Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea, Persians used the term Saka, for approximately the same people who lived further east. Although the ancients did not clearly distinguish the two terms, modern scholars usually use Saka to refer to Iranian-speaking tribes who inhabited the central steppe, the Chinese used the term Sai, for Sakas who had moved into the Tarim Basin. Assyrian sources speak of Iskuzai or Askuzai south of the Caucasus who were probably Scythians, the relationships between the peoples living in these widely separated regions remains unclear. Their westernmost territories during the Iron Age were known to classical Greek sources as Scythia, the Scythians were among the earliest peoples to master mounted warfare. In the 8th century BC they possibly raided Zhou China, soon after they expanded westwards and dislodged the Cimmerians from power on the Pontic Steppe. Based in what is modern-day Ukraine, Southern European Russia, and Crimea, the Scythians established and controlled a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China, perhaps contributing to the contemporary flourishing of those civilizations. Settled metalworkers made portable decorative objects for the Scythians and these objects survive mainly in metal, forming a distinctive Scythian art. In the 7th century BC the Scythians crossed the Caucasus and frequently raided the Middle East along with the Cimmerians, around 650–630 BC, Scythians briefly dominated the Medes of the western Iranian Plateau, stretching their power all the way to the borders of Egypt. After losing control over Media the Scythians continued intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, the Scythians subsequently engaged in frequent conflicts with the Achaemenid Empire. The western Scythians suffered a defeat against Macedonia in the 4th century BC, and were subsequently gradually conquered by the Sarmatians. In Eastern Europe, by the early Medieval Ages, the Scythians, Scythians kept herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, lived in tent-covered wagons, and fought with bows and arrows on horseback. They developed a culture characterized by opulent tombs, fine metalwork. Sulimirski views the Histories of Herodotus as the most important literary source relating to ancient Scyths, Herodotus provides a depiction that can be related to the results of archaeological research, but apparently knew little of the eastern part of Scythia. He did say that the ancient Persians called all the Scyths Σάκαι and their principal tribe, the Royal Scyths, ruled the vast lands occupied by the nation as a whole, calling themselves Σκώλοτοι. The restored Scythian name is *Skuda, which among the Pontic or Royal Scythians became *Skula, in which the d has been regularly replaced by an l. Saka, on the hand, Szemerényi relates to an Iranian verbal root, sak-, go, roam. The name does appear somewhat further east than the Achaemenid Empire, whether they adopted the Achaemenid name, or Saka came to be an endonym, it is not clear

40.
Medes
–
The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in an area known as Media and who spoke the Median language. This allowed new peoples to pass through and settle, in addition Elam, the dominant power in Iran, was suffering a period of severe weakness, as was Babylonia to the west. During the reign of Sinsharishkun the Assyrian empire, which had been in a state of constant civil war since 626 BC, subject peoples, such as the Medes, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Lydians and Arameans quietly ceased to pay tribute to Assyria. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BC by Cyrus the Great. However, nowadays there is doubt whether a united Median empire ever existed. There is no evidence and the story of Herodotus is not supported by sources from the Neo-Assyrian Empire nor the Neo-Babylonian Empire. A few archaeological sites and textual sources provide a documentation of the history. Apart from a few names, the language of the Medes is unknown. The Medes had an Ancient Iranian Religion with a priesthood named as Magi, later during the reigns of the last Median kings, the reforms of Zoroaster spread into western Iran. Besides Ecbatana, the other existing in Media were Laodicea. The fourth city of Media was Apamea, near Ecbatana, whose location is now unknown. According to the Histories of Herodotus, there were six Median tribes, Thus Deioces collected the Medes into a nation, now these are the tribes of which they consist, the Busae, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii, and the Magi. The six Median tribes resided in Media proper, the triangular shaped area between Ecbatana, Rhagae and Aspadana, in modern Iran, that is the area between Tehran, Isfahan and Hamadan. Of the Median tribes, the Magi resided in Rhaga, modern Tehran and it was a type of sacred caste, which ministered to the spiritual needs of the Medes. The Paretaceni tribe resided in and around Aspadana, modern Isfahan, the Arizanti lived in and around Kashan, the Struchates and the Budii lived in villages in the Median triangle. The original source for different words used to call the Median people, their language, the meaning of this word is not precisely established. The Median people are mentioned by name in many ancient texts. According to the Histories of Herodotus, The Medes were called anciently by all people Aryans, but when Medea, such is the account which they themselves give

41.
Achaemenid Empire
–
The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire

42.
Satrapy of Armenia
–
The Satrapy of Armenia, a region controlled by the Orontid Dynasty was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, which later became an independent kingdom. Its capitals were Tushpa and later Erebuni, after the collapse of the Kingdom of Urartu, the region was placed under the administration of the Median Empire and the Scythians. Later the territory was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire, which incorporated it as a satrapy, and thus named it the land of Armina ). The Orontid Dynasty, or known by their name, Eruandid or Yervanduni, was a hereditary dynasty of ancient Armenia. Historians state that the dynasty was of Iranian origin, and suggest, albeit not clearly, throughout their existence, the Orontids stressed their lineage from the Achaemenids in order to strengthen their political legitimacy. The Orontids established their supremacy over Armenia around the time of the Scythian and Median invasion in the 6th century BC and its founder was Orontes I Sakavakyats. His son, Tigranes Orontid, united his forces with Cyrus the Great, moses of Chorene called him the wisest, most powerful and bravest of Armenian kings. From 553 BC to 521 BC, Armenia was a kingdom of the Achaemenid Empire. He sent an Armenian named Dâdarši to stop a revolt against Persian rule, later replacing him with the Persian general, Vaumisa, who defeated the Armenians in 521 BC. Around the same time, another Armenian by the name of Arakha, son of Haldita, claimed to be the son of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus and his rebellion was short lived and was suppressed by Intaphrenes, Darius bow carrier. After the Battle of Gaugamela, Orontes III was able to regain independence for Armenia, but in 201 BC, Armenia was conquered by Artashes, a general from the Seleucid Empire, and also said to be a member of Orontid dynasty. The last Orontid king Orontes IV was killed, but the Orontids continued to rule in Sophene and Commagene until the 1st century BC, Orontid Dynasty Urartu Achaemenid Empire Kingdom of Armenia

43.
Orontid Dynasty
–
The Orontid dynasty, also known by their native name Eruandid or Yervanduni, was a hereditary Armenian dynasty and the rulers of the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu. The Orontids established their supremacy over Armenia around the time of the Scythian and Median invasion in the 6th century BC, the Orontids are the first of the three royal dynasties that successively ruled the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. Little is known about the origins of the Orontid dynasty, some historians believe that the Orontid kings were of Armenian or Urartian origin. In addition, historians believe the dynasty may have had Iranian origin through a relation to the Achaemenids. The name Orontes is the Hellenized form of a name of Iranian origin. The name is attested in Greek. Its Avestan connection is Auruuant and Middle Persian Arwand, some have suggested a continuity with the Hittite name Arnuwanda. Various Greek transcriptions of the name in Classical sources are spelled as Orontes, Aruandes or Ardoates, the presence of this dynasty is attested from at least 400 BC, and it can be shown to have ruled originally from Armavir and subsequently Yervandashat. Xenophon mentions an Armenian king named Tigranes in his Cyropaedia and he was an ally of Cyrus the Great with whom he hunted. His elder son was also named Tigranes, upon the outbreak of hostilities between Medes and Babylonians, Tigranes had renounced his treaty obligations to the Medes. As a successor of Astyages, Cyrus demanded to be paid the same tribute, strabo corroborates this in his Geography. In 521 BC, with the disturbances that occurred after the death of Cambyses and the proclamation of Smerdis as King, the Armenians revolted. Darius I of Persia sent an Armenian named Dâdarši to suffocate the revolt, around the same time, another Armenian by the name of Arakha, son of Haldita, claimed to be the son of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, and renamed himself Nebuchadnezzar IV. His rebellion was short-lived and was suppressed by Intaphrenes, Darius bow carrier and these events are described in detail within the Behistun inscription. After the administrative reorganization of the Persian Empire, Armenia was converted into several satrapies, Armenian satraps regularly intermarried with the family of the King of Kings. These satraps provided contingents to Xerxes invasion of Greece in 480 BC, herodotus says that the Armenians in the army of Xerxes were armed like the Phrygians. In 401 BC Xenophon marched through Armenia with an army of Greek mercenaries as part of the March of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon mentions two individuals by the name Orontes, apparently both Persian, tiribaz is mentioned as hipparchos of Armenia under Orontes, who later became satrap of Lydia

44.
Lesser Armenia
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Lesser Armenia, also known as Armenia Minor and Armenia Inferior, comprised the Armenian–populated regions primarily to the west and northwest of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. The region was reorganized into the Armeniac Theme under the Byzantine Empire. Lesser Armenia was the portion of historic Armenia and the Armenian Highlands lying west and northwest of the river Euphrates and it received its name to distinguish it from the much larger eastern portion of historic Armenia—Greater Armenia. From the 6th century BC, the territory of Lesser Armenia was ruled by Orontid Dynasty, the early Armenian kingdom was named the Satrapy of Armenia. Some time after the death of Alexander the Great, Mithridates, as the kingdom grew in strength, it included Lesser Armenia well. Armenia was disputed kingdom between Rome and Parthia during the Roman-Persian Wars from 66 BC to the 2nd century AD. All of Armenia became a Roman province in AD114 under Roman emperor Trajan, romans lost Armenia again to Vologases IV of Parthia in AD161. But a few later, at the end of the 3rd century, Rome was again in control of Armenia. Lesser Armenia was reunited with the kingdom of Greater Armenia under the Arshakuni king Tiridates III in AD287, then it was formed into a regular province under Diocletian, and in the 4th century, was divided in two provinces, First Armenia and Second Armenia. Its population remained Armenian, but was being gradually Romanized, since the 3rd century many Armenian soldiers were in the Roman army, later–in the 4th century–they made up two Roman legions, the Legio I Armeniaca and the Legio II Armeniaca. After this, the part of Lesser Armenia remaining under Byzantine control became part of the theme of Armeniakon, between the 11th and 14th centuries the term Lesser Armenia was applied to the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, until the formation of Turkey in 1923. The Christian Armenian population of Lesser Armenia continued its existence in the area until the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23, some Armenians still live in the area, albeit converted to Islam under Ottoman influence, mainly in the 17th century. Hemshinli Bert Vaux, Hemshinli, The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians, mack Chahin, The Kingdom of Armenia, A History, Routledge, London,2001. Robert H. Hewsen, Armenia, A Historical Atlas, University Of Chicago Press,2000

45.
Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)
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The Kingdom of Armenia, also the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, or simply Greater Armenia, was a monarchy in the Ancient Near East which existed from 321 BC to 428 AD. Its history is divided into successive reigns by three dynasties, Orontid, Artaxiad and Arsacid. It is widely believed to be the region with which all Armenians descend from and it was one of the largest empires in the history of the Middle East. Under the Seleucid Empire, the Armenian throne was divided in two – Armenia Maior and Sophene – both of which passed to members of the Artaxiad dynasty in 189 BC. The remaining Artaxiad kings ruled as clients of Rome until they were overthrown in 12 AD due to their allegiance to Romes main rival in the region. During the Roman–Parthian Wars, the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia was founded when Tiridates I, throughout most of its history during this period, Armenia was heavily contested between Rome and Parthia, and the Armenian nobility was divided among pro-Roman, pro-Parthian or neutrals. From 114 to 118, Armenia briefly became a province of the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan, the Kingdom of Armenia often served as a client state or vassal at the frontier of the two large empires and their successors, the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. In 301, Tiridates III proclaimed Christianity as the religion of Armenia. During the Byzantine–Sasanian wars, Armenia was ultimately partitioned into Byzantine Armenia in 387, the Kingdoms symbol and most famous icon was Mount Ararat, arguably the tallest mountain in the kingdom. The geographic Armenian Highlands, then known as the highlands of Ararat, was inhabited by Proto-Armenian tribes which did not yet constitute a unitary state or nation. The highlands were first united by tribes in the vicinity of Lake Van into the Kingdom of Van, the kingdom competed with Assyria over supremacy in the highlands of Ararat and the Fertile Crescent. Both kingdoms fell to Iranian invaders from the neighbouring East in the 6th century BC and its territory was reorganized into a satrapy called Armenia. The Orontid dynasty ruled as satraps of the Achaemenid Empire for three centuries until the defeat against Alexander the Greats Macedonian Empire at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. After Alexanders death in 323 BC, a Macedonian general named Neoptolemus obtained Armenia until he died in 321 BC and the Orontids returned, not as satraps, Orontes III also defeated the Thessalian commander Menon, who wanted to capture Spers gold mines. The Seleucid Empires influence over Armenia had weakened after it was defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, a Hellenistic Armenian state was thus founded in the same year by Artaxias I alongside the Armenian kingdom of Sophene led by Zariadres. Artaxias seized Yervandashat, united the Armenian Highlands at the expense of neighboring tribes, according to Strabo and Plutarch, Hannibal Barca received hospitality at the Armenian court of Artaxias I. The authors add a story of how Hannibal planned and supervised the building of Artaxata. The new city was laid on a position at the juncture of trade routes that connected the Ancient Greek world with Bactria, India

Mongol Empire
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The Mongol Empire existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Genghis Khan. The empire grew rapidly under the rule of him and his descendants, the Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Öge

1.
Mongolian tribes during the Khitan Liao dynasty (907-1125)

3.
Eurasia on the eve of the Mongol invasions, c. 1200.

4.
Genghis Khan, National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan

Ilkhanate
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The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate, was established as a khanate that formed the southwestern sector of the Mongol Empire, ruled by the Mongol House of Hulagu. It was founded in the 13th century and was based primarily in Iran as well as neighboring territories, such as present-day Azerbaijan and the central and eastern parts of present-day Tur

1.
Ilkhanate flag (roughly featuring its official square stamp at the center)

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Hulagu Khan, founder of the Ilkhanate, with his Christian queen Doquz Khatun

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A Mongol horse archer in the 13th century.

Sis (ancient city)
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Sis was the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The massive fortified complex is just to the southwest of the modern Turkish town of Kozan in Adana Province, Sis was one of the Hittite settlements on the Cilician plain between the mountains and the Mediterranean coast. Sis appears to have been a village in the Roman province of Cilicia Secu

1.
The fortress the old Armenian Capital Sis

Armenian language
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The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. Like Hellenic Greek, it has its own branch in the language tree. It is the language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own script, the Arm

1.
Armenian manuscript, 5th–6th century.

2.
regions where Armenian is the language of the majority

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The Four Gospels, 1495, Portrait of St Mark Wellcome with Armenian inscriptions

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First Armenian language Bible.

Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages

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Latin inscription, in the Colosseum

2.
Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico is one of the most famous classical Latin texts of the Golden Age of Latin. The unvarnished, journalistic style of this patrician general has long been taught as a model of the urbane Latin officially spoken and written in the floruit of the Roman republic.

Old French
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Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgun

1.
Map of France in 1180, at the height of the feudal system. The possessions of the French king are in light blue, vassals to the French king in green, Angevin possessions in red. Shown in white is the Holy Roman Empire to the east, the western fringes of which, including Upper Burgundy and Lorraine were also part of the Old French areal.

Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Li

1.
Idealized portrayal of Homer

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regions where Greek is the official language

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Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece

Syriac language
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Syriac /ˈsɪri. æk/, also known as Syriac Aramaic, is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia. Indeed, Syriac literature comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Neo-Assyrian Empire when they conquered the various Aramean city-kingdoms to it

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Syriac Aramaic alphabet

2.
Although once a major language in the Fertile Crescent and Bahrain, Syriac is now limited to the towns and villages in the Nineveh plains, Tur Abdin, the Khabur plains, in and around the cities of Mosul, Irbil and Kurkuk.

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An 11th-century Syriac manuscript.

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Isho or Eesho, the Aramaic name of Jesus

Armenian Apostolic Church
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The Armenian Apostolic Church is the national church of the Armenian people. Part of Oriental Orthodoxy, it is one of the most ancient Christian communities, Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in the early 4th century. The church claims to have originated in the missions of Apostles Bartholomew and it is s

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Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church

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Baptism of Tiridates III.

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Procession of Armenian Priests.

Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summ

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Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

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St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

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Pope Francis, elected in the papal conclave, 2013

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Traditional graphic representation of the Trinity: The earliest attested version of the diagram, from a manuscript of Peter of Poitiers ' writings, c. 1210

Syriac Christianity
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With a history going back to the 1st century AD, Syriac Christianity is, in modern times, represented by denominations primarily in the Middle East, Asia Minor and in Kerala, India. Christianity began in the Middle East in Jerusalem among Jewish Aramaic-speaking Semitic peoples of Judah and it quickly spread, initially to other Semitic peoples, in

Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have

1.
Richard I of England being anointed during his coronation in Westminster Abbey, from a 13th-century chronicle.

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Thutmose I, the third Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt.

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King George III of the United Kingdom, Portrait by Allan Ramsay, 1762

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King Salman of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarch.

Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The med

1.
The Cross of Mathilde, a crux gemmata made for Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the enamel plaque. The body of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in Cologne or Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques: cast figurative sculpture, filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical cameos and engraved gems.

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A late Roman statue depicting the four Tetrarchs, now in Venice

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Coin of Theodoric

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Mosaic showing Justinian with the bishop of Ravenna, bodyguards, and courtiers

Leo I of Armenia
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Leo II, also Leon II, Levon II or Lewon II, was the tenth lord of Armenian Cilicia or “Lord of the Mountains”, and the first king of Armenian Cilicia. During his reign, Leo succeeded in establishing Cilician Armenia as a powerful, Leo eagerly led his kingdom alongside the armies of the Third Crusade and provided the crusaders with provisions, guide

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Leo I the Magnificent

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Signature

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The ruins of Baghras Castle (today in Turkey)

Mamluk
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Mamluk is an Arabic designation for slaves. The term is most commonly used to refer to Muslim slave soldiers and these were mostly enslaved Turkic peoples, Egyptian Copts, Circassians, Abkhazians, and Georgians. Many Mamluks were also of Balkan origin, over time, the mamluks became a powerful military knightly caste in various societies that were c

1.
A Mamluk nobleman from Aleppo

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An Egyptian Mamluk warrior in full armor and armed with lance, shield, sabre and pistols

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Mamluk lancers, early 16th century (etching by Daniel Hopfer)

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Ottoman Mamluk heavy cavalry armour, circa 1550

Seljuq Armenia
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Although the native Bagratuni Dynasty was founded under favourable circumstances, the feudal system gradually weakened the country by eroding loyalty to the central government. Thus internally enfeebled, Armenia proved an easy victim for the Byzantines, the Seljuq dynasty under Alp Arslan took the city of Ani in 1064. In 1071, after the defeat of t

2.
Armenia, split among the Shaddadids of Ani and Gandzak, Ahlatshahs (Shah-Armen), the Saltukids of Erzurum (Karin/Theodosiopolis), the Kingdom of Syunik-Baghk, states in the Armenian Highlands during its Seljuq rule.

Byzantine Empire under the Angelos dynasty
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During this time, many different imperial dynasties ruled over the empire, in the context of Byzantine history, the period c.1185 – c.1204 AD was under the Angeloi dynasty. The Angeloi rose to the following the deposition of Andronikos I Komnenos. The Angeloi were female-line descendants of the previous dynasty, the Fourth Crusade is seen by histor

2.
Iconium is won by the Third Crusade. This was Byzantium's second and last benefit of the Crusades.

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Map to show the partition of the empire following the Fourth Crusade, c. 1204.

Bagratid Armenia
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Ashots prestige rose as he was courted by both Byzantine and Arab leaders eager to maintain a buffer state near their frontiers. The Caliphate recognized Ashot as prince of princes in 862 and, later on, the establishment of the Bagratuni kingdom later led to the founding of several other Armenian principalities and kingdoms, Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars

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Relief carvings of Smbat and Gurgen Bagratuni at Sanahin.

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Emirate of Armenia under Arab rule, prior to the establishment of the Bagratid dynasty.

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A statue of King Gagik I that originally had him holding a model of the Church of St. Gregory.

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The Cathedral of Ani, completed in 1001 by Trdat the Architect.

Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī peri

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Mamluk Egyptian Flag

2.
A Mamluk nobleman from Aleppo.

Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to

1.
Some henges at Göbekli Tepe were erected as far back as 12,000 BC, predating those of Stonehenge, England by almost ten millennia.

2.
Flag

3.
The Lion Gate in Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire. The city's history dates back to the 6th millennium BC.

4.
The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built by the Romans in 135 AD. The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, built by king Croesus of Lydia in the 6th century BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of th

1.
Female figurine, 5000 BC. Ancient Orient Museum.

2.
Flag

3.
God head, the kingdom of Yamhad (c. 1600 BC)

4.
Ebla royal palace c. 2400 BC

Rubenids
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The Rubenids or Roupenids were an Armenian dynasty who dominated parts of Cilicia, and who established the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The dynasty takes its name from its founder, the Armenian prince Ruben I, the Rubenids were princes, later kings, of Cilicia from around 1080 until they were surpassed by the Hethumids in the mid-thirteenth century

1.
Rubenids Ռուբինյաններ

History of Armenia
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Armenia lies in the highlands surrounding the Biblical mountains of Ararat. The original Armenian name for the country was Hayk, later Hayastan, translated as the land of Haik, and consisting of the name of the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya, the historical enemy of Hayk, Hayastan, was Bel, or in other words Baal. The word Bel is named in the Bible

1.
Yerevan with Mount Ararat in the background.

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A 5500-year-old leather shoe, oldest found in the world, discovered in the Areni cave in Armenia, see Areni-1 shoe

3.
Bronze Age burial site Zorats Karer (also known as Karahunj).

4.
Map of the Armenian Oblast within the Russian Empire.

Name of Armenia
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The name Armenia enters English via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἀρμενία. The Armenian endonym for the Armenian people and country is hayer and hayk’, the exact etymology of the name is unknown, and there are various speculative attempts to connect it to older toponyms or ethnonyms. The earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th c

History of Armenia (book)
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It contains unique material on ancient Armenian legends, and such information on pagan Armenian as has survived. It also contains plentiful data on the history and culture of contiguous countries, the book had an enormous impact on Armenian historiography. In the text, the author self-identifies as a disciple of Saint Mesrop, and states that he com

Armenian hypothesis
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The two presented the hypothesis in two articles in Vestnik drevnej istorii and then in a much larger work. They claim that the Indo-European languages came from a language in Armenia to the Pontic steppe from which it expanded, according to the Kurgan hypothesis, the Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Greek and Armenian branches split from the Armenian homela

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Origin

Prehistoric Armenia
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The modern territory of Armenia has been settled by human groups from the Lower Paleolithic to modern days. The first human traces are supported by the presence of Acheulean tools, middle and Upper Paleolithic settlements have also been identified such as at the Hovk 1 cave. The Armenian Highland finally shows traces of settlement from the Neolithi

Stone Age
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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archa

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Obsidian projectile point

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Modern Awash River, Ethiopia, descendant of the Palaeo-Awash, source of the sediments in which the oldest Stone Age tools have been found

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A variety of stone tools

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This is a Mode 1, or Oldowan, stone tool from the western Sahara.

Chalcolithic
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The Copper Age was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The archaeological site of Belovode on the Rudnik mountain in Serbia contains the worlds oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting from 5000 BCE, the multiple names result from multiple recognitions of the period. Originally, the term Bronze Age

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Painting of a Copper Age walled city, Los Millares, Iberia

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Chalcolithic copper mine in Timna Valley, Negev Desert, Israel

Areni-1 cave complex
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The Areni-1 cave complex is located near the Areni village in southern Armenia along the Arpa River. In 2010, it was announced that the earliest known shoe was found at the site, in January 2011, the earliest known winery in the world was announced to have been found. Also in 2011, the discovery of a straw skirt dating to 3900 BC was reported, in 2

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Panorama of the Areni-1 site along the Arpa River

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Entrance to the Areni-1 cave

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Pathway to the entrance

Hayk
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Hayk or Hayg, also known as Haik Nahapet is the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation. His story is told in the History of Armenia attributed to the Armenian historian Moses of Chorene, the name of the patriarch, Հայկ Hayk is not exactly homophonous with the name for Armenia, Հայք Hayk’. Հայք Hayk’ is the plural in Classical Armeni

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Statue of Haik Nahapet in Yerevan, Armenia.

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"Hayk" by Mkrtum Hovnatanian (1779–1846). The legendary founder of the Armenian nation, standing next to the tomb of Bel, with Hayk's arrow still in Bel's chest. The map depicts the Lake Van region and Mount Ararat, with Noah's ark.

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Hayk defeats Bel with an arrow.

Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by sm

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Chalcolithic copper mine in Timna Valley, Negev Desert, Israel.

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Diffusion of metallurgy in Europe and Asia Minor. The darkest areas are the oldest.

Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become wi

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Archaeological artifact from the work developed in the area of Citânia de Briteiros

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Cross or cruzado in Citânia de Breteiros

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A pedra formosa

Hayasa-Azzi
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The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC. Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa. Ot

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Location of Hayasa-Azzi

Shupria
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Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia. The name Subartu for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records, Shupria is mentioned in the letter of Esarhaddon to the god Assur. Esarhaddon undertook an expedition against Shupria in 674, subjugating it, bronze A

Mountains of Ararat
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The Mountains of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noahs Ark came to rest after the great flood. In Syrian tradition, as well as in Quranic tradition, the mountain is identified with Mount Judi in what is today Şırnak Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey. During the Middle Ages, this tradition has eclipsed the earlier

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Ararat mountains view

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Mt. Ararat as seen from Yerevan

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Depiction of Noah's ark landing on the "mountains of Ararat", from the North French Hebrew Miscellany (13th century)

Nairi
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Nairi was the Assyrian name for a confederation of tribes in the Armenian Highlands, roughly corresponding to the modern Van and Hakkâri provinces of modern Turkey. The word is used to describe the tribes who lived there. Nairi has sometimes been equated with Nihriya, known from Mesopotamian, Hittite, however, its co-occurrence with Nihriya within

Urartu
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Urartu, also known as Kingdom of Van, was an Iron Age kingdom centred on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands. It corresponds to the biblical Kingdom of Ararat, the language appears in cuneiform inscriptions. It is argued on linguistic evidence that came in contact with Urartian at an early date. That a distinction should be made between the geograph

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A Urartian cauldron, from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara

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Urartu, 9th–6th centuries BC.

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Head of a Bull, Urartu, 8th century BC. This head was attached to the rim of an enormous cauldron similar to the one shown above. Walters Art Museum collections.

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Fragment of a bronze helmet from Argishti I's era. The " tree of life ", popular among the ancient societies, is depicted. The helmet was discovered during the excavations of the fortress Of Teyshebaini on Karmir-Blur (Red Hill).

Scythians
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The Scythian languages belonged to the Eastern branch of the Iranian languages. Ancient Greek historians spoke of Scythians who lived north of the Black Sea, Persians used the term Saka, for approximately the same people who lived further east. Although the ancients did not clearly distinguish the two terms, modern scholars usually use Saka to refe

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Gold Scythian pectoral, or neckpiece, from a royal kurgan in Tolstaya Mogila, Ordzhonikidze, Ukraine, dated to the second half of the 4th century BC. The central lower tier shows three horses, each being torn apart by two griffins.

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Skunkha, king of the Sakā tigraxaudā ("wearing pointed caps Sakae", a group of Scythian tribes). Detail of Behistun Inscription.

Medes
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The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in an area known as Media and who spoke the Median language. This allowed new peoples to pass through and settle, in addition Elam, the dominant power in Iran, was suffering a period of severe weakness, as was Babylonia to the west. During the reign of Sinsharishkun the Assyrian empire, which had b

Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

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Standard of Cyrus the Great

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Relief of Cyrus the Great.

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Mausoleum at Halicarnassus one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world was built by Persian satrap of Caria, Mausolus (Scale model.)

Satrapy of Armenia
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The Satrapy of Armenia, a region controlled by the Orontid Dynasty was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, which later became an independent kingdom. Its capitals were Tushpa and later Erebuni, after the collapse of the Kingdom of Urartu, the region was placed under the administration of the Median Empire and the Sc

Orontid Dynasty
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The Orontid dynasty, also known by their native name Eruandid or Yervanduni, was a hereditary Armenian dynasty and the rulers of the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu. The Orontids established their supremacy over Armenia around the time of the Scythian and Median invasion in the 6th century BC, the Orontids are the first of the thr

Lesser Armenia
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Lesser Armenia, also known as Armenia Minor and Armenia Inferior, comprised the Armenian–populated regions primarily to the west and northwest of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. The region was reorganized into the Armeniac Theme under the Byzantine Empire. Lesser Armenia was the portion of historic Armenia and the Armenian Highlands lying west and

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Lesser Armenia (in greenish yellow, near the Black Sea) at the end of the 2nd century BC, just before the Roman conquest

Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity)
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The Kingdom of Armenia, also the Kingdom of Greater Armenia, or simply Greater Armenia, was a monarchy in the Ancient Near East which existed from 321 BC to 428 AD. Its history is divided into successive reigns by three dynasties, Orontid, Artaxiad and Arsacid. It is widely believed to be the region with which all Armenians descend from and it was

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14th century copy of the February 7, 1248, letter of Sempad to Henry I of Cyprus and John of Ibelin, stating that "If God hadn't brought the Tartars who then massacred the pagans, they [the Sarasins] would have been able to invade the whole land as far as the sea." The letter was also shown to Louis IX.

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An " Armenian bey ", the executive authority on Armenian reaya. The bey was part of civil administration.

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Costumes of the Ottoman Empire extending to Muslims, Christians, Jewish communities, clergy, tradesmen, state and military officials were strictly regulated during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.

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Calouste Gulbenkian, internationally known businessman and philanthropist born in 1869 at Üsküdar

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Peter the Great officially renamed the Tsardom of Russia the Russian Empire in 1721, and himself its first emperor. He instituted the sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power.

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Flag

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Empress Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the Russian Enlightenment.